Absolutely. Most insurance companies have three different hospital policies, e.g. basic, middle, top cover. If you take out hospital cover it usually includes ambulance (but check).

If you don't take out hospital cover, you can take out separate ambualnce cover.

And then they have ancillary cover. That's for dental, physio, etc etc. Again there are usually three types of policy: basic, better, super duper.

You can take out any of the hospital covers and match that with any of the ancillary ones. Or take out just ancillary cover. You can even take out hospital cover with one comapny and ancillary cover with another company. The mix and match possibilities are (nearly) endless, lol.

You can also transfer from one company to another (if maybe in another year you think you can get a better deal elsewhere).

One point to bear in mind: After you arrive as a perm resident, and if you are over 30 years old you have 12 months to sign up with a private insurer. Otherwise they slap a penalty premium on you for being over 30.

They don't have lists in the same way as the UK, you just turn up and ask for an appointment. If they have time to fit you in, they will do.

I suppose it is feasible that some doctors may be so busy that they are always fully booked, but I haven't come across any so far.

Some doctors only bulk bill children and charge adults, others bulk bill everyone with a Medicare card.

you get no ambulance cover on medicare.
Costs us $88 for a family of 4 last year. (ambulance only)

Ours is included in our Electric bill, (QLD only)

All the medicare public specialists do bulk bill. Only private specialists charge.

Not many people do get to see those ones though. Most people tend to see private specialists.

I would imagine there are waiting lists for the Medicare Specialists.

I think it may be used more than we think: "in 2003/04 Queensland provided 58 medical and surgical outpatient occasions of service per 100 population compared to the national average of 49 per 100." - In Qld, in one year, roughly 1.6 million "occasions of service" were provided by specialist outpatient services.

In some things I think there would be long waiting lists, but in others I think they are reasonable - but I can't find the stats - all I can find is figures for people waiting for elective surgery rather than just waiting to see a specialist - your superior googling skills might find it