LauraC

What is 'rebate %' ?

Also even though I am not going to be getting pregnant anytime soon, is it better to have the cover now or can i add it when I decide I may want kids?

What is 'Daily Co-payment'?

First benefit - does that mean that's how much it is for the first visit?

Stitch

Only really can comment on the rebate. This is the federal rebate which for us (in 30's and 40's) is 30%. Government basically gives you 30% off PHI. As for the rest not too sure.

Cheers

Ginny

augigi

Laura, the policy you're being quoted should include an explanation of the terms.

Daily co-payment: In order to reduce your annual premium, you can hope that you probably won't need hospitalisation, and elect to have a daily co-payment amount. In essence, if you do then end up hospitalised, you'd have to contribute this amount to the daily charge. Generally a different amount for shared/private rooms.

With regards to pregnancy, just check if it's something you can add on, or what the waiting period is if you do decide to add it on. In theory you can just add it before you need it (depending on the waiting period) - but that's provided you've a fail-safe plan in place in the meantime!

LauraC

Thanks.

iSelect does have an explaination of terms, it just doesn't make sense to me. I'll have a better look on the companies websites, not iselect's, maybe that would make more sense.

Co-payment - I see, I just pay towards the hospital stay. Makes sense.

I will check if pregnancy stuff can be added on at a later date.

Thanks.

Wol

Don't rely on the "just" in your post! The hospital bills can easily dwarf the surgeons' bills and all the other ones.

(Bit of an expert, having been an inpatient 4 times and outpatient twice this year!)

LauraC

Oh. Is co-pay worth it then? Or would full hospital cover be better, just in case?

I hope whatever had you in and out of hospital has been resolved.

Wol

Thanks.

We have full hospital cover, and the hospital accommodation *was* paid by the insurer. But the surgeons' bills, the anaethetists' bills, pathology etc etc were only paid in part - a very small part.

What they don't tell you is that Medicare pay a *percentage* of the Medicare scheduled fee. Say, for example, that you have an op which is billed by the surgeon at $3000. If the Medicare scheduled fee is $1000, Medicare will refund you (say) $800. Your health fund will pay the difference OF THE SCHEDULED FEE AND THE MEDICARE PAYMENT - ie., $200. Leaving you with a $2000 bill to pay.

The NHS it ain't!

moneypenny20

Very often it's just not worth having health insurance because of the scenario Wol mentions. If you don't have it and you're earning less than 50k for one person or 100K for a couple, Medicare generally cover all payments unless of course it's not plastic surgery type of stuff. Obviously you don't have a waiting list with private (or not as long) but emergency stuff will be fully covered and quite often the service is identical.

quoll

We have a policy with an excess which reduces the premiums but we pay the first $250 of any hospital stay. I think we also have a co-payment (a top up for the best private rooms with ensuite) which also reduces the premiums but what we had to shell out wasnt that much. The medical costs can be crippling - especially the anaesthetists I have found. The surgeons have (thus far) been incredibly reasonable but we have paid through the nose for the gas man!

I dont know if you are aware but after a certain age if you begin with a fund, you will pay a higher premium, the older you are. So, if you start at 25 then your premiums are as low as they will be, they just go up whenever the fund requests the government to increase premiums. If however, you join after the magic age (is it 30 or 35???) then the starting premium increases for every year so if you join at 60 you could be paying double the amount per month than a person of the same age who has been in since they were 30.

I wouldnt be mucking around if I thought there was a chance that I would be wanting private hospital coverage for pregnancy. You cant take out insurance once you know you are pregnant. However, pregnancy is one of those things that you can do without private medical at all - the baby is going to come regardless and there will be someone at the hospital or birthing centre who will catch it! Only benefit is that you can have the doctor you choose (providing they are not on their annual holiday to the South of France or living it up in the Grampians at the time) and you can have a private room (but public rooms are really not that bad for the few days you would need to be in!)

We are suckers and we continue to contribute to HCF's rip off plan but we have had a few incidents where elective surgery was required and it was worth every cent we had paid out - the thought of waiting 2 years to have my gall bladder out would probably have seen me slit my wrists first!!! As retirees though it is darned expensive and if I thought we were disciplined enough to put it into a dedicated fund then we might give it up.

moneypenny20

It's 30. If you're over 30 when you get here, you have 12 months (possibly from validation) to start an insurance scheme when they won't penalise you. If you do it after the 12 months you get stacks of loading for each year over 30.

FRAYNE

We came out to Oz a year ago both in our early 50 fit and healthy we thought, we didnt take out private health cover,we havent managed to get jobs I wasnt looking but hubby is, anyway he found out he had a aggressive cancer a few months ago and with medicare rebate he will still have pay $3500 even though we are not earning anything.
Janet

moneypenny20

God, I'm sorry I've just heard so many stories from people who've had major issues but not had to pay a penny. Hope he's ok.

FRAYNE

Hes fine at the moment,but everything that could go wrong as gone wrong no job,and we were due to exchange contracts on our house in Uk on Friday but the chaine has fallen through the house we were renting the owner deicided to sell so moved into another rental today thought about putting my head in the gas oven but its electric so having a bottle of wine instead janet