Health Insurance 7
Treatment in a private hospital
Private hospitals may be more comfortable and give a greater choice of admission
dates. They may also offer 'luxuries’ such as single rooms, private bathrooms
and TVs. However, there’s no evidence that you get better treatment in the
private system.
If staying in a private hospital isn’t important to you, basic private health
insurance policies that cover you as a private patient in a public hospital may
be all you need. These basic private policies tend to be cheaper than other
private policies, and you still get your choice of doctor. However, it's not
suitable if you want to go to a private hospital as you will have to pay some
accommodation and other costs yourself.
Cover for extras/ancillary
If you have regular trips to the dentist or physiotherapist, or you need
glasses, you may want to consider extras cover. Some extras policies pay a
benefit for natural therapies like acupuncture or naturopathy.
Extras policies are not affected by complex government rules — this means you
can take them out later in life without being penalised. So it’s worth
calculating how much money you got back from your claims in the past year and
compare this with the price you're currently paying for your policy. Are you
getting value for money?
How to save
You can save on your private hospital insurance premium by buying a policy:
With an excess (the excess is the amount of money you have to pay for a hospital
stay, before the private health fund starts paying).
Where you pay a co-payment if you go into hospital (you pay an agreed amount
each time a service is provided — usually a set amount per day for a set number
of days per stay).
That excludes treatment for some conditions. But remember, if you do end up
needing treatment for the excluded conditions, you’ll only be covered as a
public patient in a public hospital – like someone without private health
insurance.
That only covers you as a private patient in a public hospital for some or all
conditions.
If you decide to go for one of these policies, check the fine print carefully.
For example, with some policies the excess is applied once a year; other
policies could apply the excess up to five times.
If you want to take out hospital insurance to avoid paying the Medicare levy
surcharge you need to be especially careful.
Some policies with a high excess (more than $500 for singles and $1000 for
couples/families) are exempt. This means you’d still pay the extra levy even
though you’ve paid for insurance.
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