Goodi

We are planning to come out later this year on a student visa.

Our son is taking medication for ADHD. Does anyone know if we will have to pay the full costs for his medication when we come out, as we will be on a temporary visa? Or is our medicare cover likely to cover some of the costs?
Thanks.

MarkandJulie

On a student visa you will be required to have your own medical cover - you will not be entitled to Medicare. All policies are different but with ours we had a 12 month wait before we could claim anything against existing conditions

Goodi

I see, does this include dependants too? As I understood that Medicare offered reciprocal healthcare to people from the Uk visiting temporarily.

So did you arrange your own Overseas Student Health Cover, or did your advise you?

Thanks
Lisa

Mrs Jackaroo

The reciprocal agreement only covers emergencies - accidents etc. You will probably still be able to claim back docs appts charges but for medication you usually have to pay (whether temp resident or not). I am on lifetime thyroid medication now and have to pay and I'm a permanent resident.

HTH (although not good news I know)

MarkandJulie

Yes, dependents are included
Medicare is only if you are on a tourist visa. You will have to provide evidence that you have adequate health cover in place prior to your student visa being granted
We arranged our cover ourselves, although the number of companies who offer this type of cover is very limited. The Uni recommended a company to us but we also checked out what was available elsewhere

Goodi

thank you all.

martinw01908

Sorry for jumping in. I'm on lifetime medication. Does that mean that if I were an Australian permanent resident I would have to get the medication privately from the phamacy because I had assumed I would have to. I didn't think there was such a thing as Medicare subsidised prescriptions??

Mrs Jackaroo

Yep - same as the UK. You get prescription from Doc and then take it to the pharmacy and pay up

martinw01908

Thanks. So as its pre-existing, doesn't that mean I can't get this cheaper prescription?

Mrs Jackaroo

As far as I'm aware whether conditions are 'new' or 'pre-existing' is irrelevant to Medicare - Private Health Cover would be a different story, although I still dont think you'd get the cost of prescription meds back (I dont have Health Cover so cant help you with that). You basically pay for your prescriptions here in the same way you do in the UK. Prescriptions for me in the UK would have been free (thyroid disease) but they're not here unfortunately.