Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Hi, I'm new here! My husband and I were/are due to go to Australia in January for him to start work on a 457 visa. We have an 18 month old already and I will be 6 months pregnant when due to fly. The company has said the health insurance they provide for the first 3 months will not cover us for pregnancy and from what we understand about Medicare, that won't either? We are having huge trouble finding real info about the cost, it's very contradictory so far from being free, to 5-10K (I've even seen 20k!) in public hospitals alone! I will also be likely to have a c-section following one last time which will probably cost more too! Has anybody been through this and can really advise/point us in the right direction so we can make the right decision about whether we can even afford to go now?! Many many thanks! :confused:

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Hi. Firstly don't panic (especially being pregnant) just take a deep breath and I'm sure lots of folk on here can give you advice. And congrats also!:thumbsup:

I take it you've read through here http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/...ster/index.jsp

http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/...ants/index.jsp

here a good baby forum where you can ask your question also http://www.bubhub.com.au/index.php

and some info here http://www.expatforum.com/expats/aus...y-costs-6.html

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Thanks, I've contacted medicare directly and will do the baby site!

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Congratulations on the baby and the visa!:thumbup:

Are you a UK resident at present? Or a resident in any of the countries that have a reciprocal health agreement with Australia? The info is here.

On a 457, and provided that you fit the above criteria, you can have a baby in the public system here and it will cost you next to nothing if you so choose.

On the one hand, your employer is correct about private insurance not covering you as you'd need to have been with them for 12 months before you give birth. One thing you need to know, is that in Australia, private health insurance only covers care in a private setting (private patient in a private hospital or private patient in a public hospital), and not all of the fees associated with the pregnancy and delivery.

As a private patient, you would need to choose your own obstetrician who will charge you out-of-pocket expenses of anything between $3,000 and $15,000. These are to cover their liability insurance premiums and they are not refunded by either Medicare or private insurers. On top of that you would pay for visits to OBGYN, scans and other tests. Medicare partially refunds those.

Private insurance basically covers the maternity hospital/birth centre stay, most of the delivery costs (I had my first child in the private system and had to pay some extra fees for out-of-hours anaesthetic care and a couple of other things) and some extras. So yes, it could become costly to go private, and it is a personal choice.

On the other hand, if you are entitled to Medicare under the reciprocal agreement, you can register at your local public hospital or with your GP (for something called shared care) and most care will be free. If you choose to go to hospital for your visits, you will pay nothing for tests and visits. You will have a gap fee for scans (about $100 each from memory 5 years ago) as they may not be fully covered by Medicare. If you choose to do shared care, most of your visits will be at your GP's (normal GP fee applies as well as Medicare refund unless you are bulk-billed - GP claims fees directly from Medicare) with only the milestones ones at hospital.

All care while at hospital for delivery and in-patient care will be free and delivery should not incur any extra costs. I have no experience of a C-section, but I'm guessing that you might not have a lot of room to choose how late to leave it before the delivery as public hospitals tend to be busy and so will schedule elective surgery when it suits them best. That is not to say that they will ask you to give birth at 36 weeks or something :eek:, just that they might not be as flexible if you wanted to wait until the last minute. They would rather have an elective C-section than an emergency one. I had gestational diabetes in my second pregnancy (in the public system) and they were FANTASTIC!:thumbsup:

The care you get in a public hospital will largely depend on what hospital you go to. AFAIK, most of the large hospitals are good. You don't tell us where you're heading? I am in Melbourne and I cannot fault the public system that I have experienced. Other might disagree :unsure:

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

I've posted this before - but it seems appropriate, particularly if you're grappling with the idea of private v public:


My wife is a public midwife - so I'll declare my bias upfront - but having said that we had both our children via a private obstetrician.

Roughly speaking the pros and cons are as follows (this is a very brief summary - so excuse the crudity of the analysis):

PRIVATE
=======
1) Costly - despite whatever cover you may have, you are likely to be thousands of $$$ out of pocket by the time you've added up pre-natal appointments, gap fees, anaesthetists and incidental extras that arent covered.
2) You are almost guaranteed to have an obstetric led birth not a midwife driven one. This means your chances of a c-section are massively increased and therefore your chances of complications are increased. Dr's tend to be quicker to intervene than midwives and reach for tools like inductions more freely - this results in a much higher rate of 'unsatisfactory birth experiences'. If you're in any doubt about this conside that the USA has the highest c-section rate in the world and has the amongst highest maternal DEATH rate of all OECD countries. For a well constructed debate on Dr vs Mdwife issues see the movie documentary "The Business of Being Born".


PUBLIC
=======
1) You will have to wait..... Every pre-natal appointment will cost you at least half a days waiting. You'll go mad.
2) You wont have guaranteed continuity of care. Different selection of health professionals at each visit.

There is no right answer - but dont be fooled into believing that private doctors will give you an unquestionably superior experience. Some people value the more natural midwife driven approach - others just cant afford half a day off work for each of the half dozen pre-natal appointments! Some like the reassurance of knowing the doctor, others hate the idea of being treated like they have something wrong with them for what is essentialy a normal process your body would do with or without anyones help!

-- If you do want to use a private obstetrician - you'll need to book in soon, the good ones book up VERY early!

(Hint: good ones are usually older guys - with cheaper fees 'cos their insurance rewards them for years of trouble free service - new 'younger' obstetricians have larger insurance bills to pay and pass that on in fees! Female obstetricians tend to be popular BECAUSE they're female and their fees end up rising simple because of supply & demand! <---- Not my opinion - but the opinion of my wife and many of her colleagues).

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Not necessarily so. We've had 2 kids born here, both on public with the first one being fully midwife care. We were able to make evening appointments to see the midwife at the hospital, with very little waiting around.

Due to a slight postpartum complication with the 1st baby (which involved a 4-night stay instead of the usual 2-night stay), for the 2nd pregnancy my wife had to see a GP Obstetrician for most of her appointments. There was a bit more waiting to see the doctor at times, but not that much and it was at a bulk billed superclinic.

All in all, the public system we experienced in Melbourne (Southern Health being the provider) was excellent. The only costs were a blood test and most scans, though we got some back from Medicare for those and one scan for the first pregnancy was done at the hospital with no cost to us.

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

My understanding is that if you have any complication, they can't deal with that in private care and send you to the public hospital anyway? Another pro-public point if true......

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Indeed, some private maternity clinics not located in a one of the larger hospitals, or some of the smaller hospitals, can't handle some things. One case in point is premature babies. None of the private clinics in Melbourne (that I know of) have a NICU and so baby will end up in one of the large hospitals or at the Royal Children's with mum often staying at her clinic. Not an ideal scenario.

If you go to the larger private maternity hospitals that are located in or near a public hospital, you won't have that issue to contend with. Examples are Frances Perry at the Royal Women's, or Mercy at the Austin.

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Wow, thanks all! We're going to Melbourne so this is particularly useful. A friend has already told me about the Women's hospital there too and I just had an email back from them saying I was covered. We would rather go public as can't afford private, but couldn't quite understand if the Medicare agreement covered pregnancy and not sure how long it takes for it to kick in - can I apply from here already to get it underway perhaps? I have a consultant here due to previous history, so a lot to weigh up, but so far all looks good this time! Feel a bit more confident about it all thank you, just got to revisit the new rule re exporting cats and the rabies jab now!! Thanks again!

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

I went private, when the s**t hits the fan - they transfer you to a public hospital that has all the equipment to support you and the baby.

I went public all the way on my second two. Much easier, waiting was similar, support was fantastic. I did though have a publically allocated personal obstetrician all the way through due to my first experience

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

oh - and on a standard birth and even in the event of problems its the midwives who do the supporting - they carry the weight of it and saved me from a caesar on my third by stopping the dr forcing one on me when it slowed a bit. Luckily having had 2 before, I was very confident that I knew there wasnt a problem - and that for me its normal to go 5cm - delivery in 15 mins ha ha

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Im a Midwife in QLD and I vote for the public system. I think the care is great !!

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

Not necessarily the same in every state, though, can vary a lot just in Perth alone.

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

I agree Helen but from what I've seen, I definitely wouldn't be paying for private care. I'm not saying that private is bad, just that public is a great service and I really couldn't justify the expense.
A 457 visa means that you are eligible for free public maternity care. You can always go private if you don't like what you get from the public system but I'd definitely be giving it a go and saving your money xx

I know that Victoria has a fantastic Midwifery model of care (midwifery group practice) with continuity of carer throughout.

Re: Cost of giving birth in Oz?!
 

I just wanted to point out that what might be great in QLD and VIC metro areas is not necessarily that way elsewhere in Australia, so new migrants need to be aware of that. Yesterday I was told that normal deliveries are only expected to be in hospital for 1 day and c-sections for 2 days:blink:.