Benefits of Private Health Insurance when going to hospital
What are the benefits of Private Health Insurance?
You might ask why it’s worth having private health insurance. Private health insurance offers you a number of benefits you wouldn’t be able to access in the public health system, namely:
- You generally have the option of being treated by your own doctor
- In most cases, it means shorter waiting times for elective surgery (compared to the public system)
- You have more control over when and where you’ll be treated
- Depending on your level of cover, helps pay for services not covered by Medicare such as ambulance, in addition to a number of non-hospital related services (e.g. chiropractic, dental, physiotherapy, optical, dietary advice and some alternative therapies)
It’s important to remember that even as a patient who is privately insured, you may expect some out-of-pocket costs. Unfortunately, your private health insurance can’t cover everything related to your procedure. To cover all aspects of a procedure would further increase the cost of private health insurance.
To help reduce your out-of-pocket costs, we’ve developed some information to help you make fully informed decisions about your treatment:
Questions to ask your GP or Specialist.
Questions to ask the Hospital.
Questions to ask nib.
If you choose to be treated as a public patient in a public hospital, you wouldn’t have any out-of-pocket costs, however there are some drawbacks:
- Your ability to choose your treating doctor is limited. Your procedure would be performed by a specialist or doctor appointed by the hospital, rather than a specialist chosen by you.
- You may not have a choice over which facility your procedure is performed in
- The date on which your procedure is done is determined by the hospital, not by you. You’ll be placed on a waiting list according to the severity of your condition. So, you could be waiting months (or even years) to have your procedure done.
- If your procedure requires you to spend some time in hospital, chances are you’ll be in a shared ward with other patients, rather than your own room.