Private health insurance provides more health care choices than Medicare alone. With private health insurance, you have affordable access to a range of private medical and health care services – giving you choices about where, when and from whom you receive treatment.
Two types of private health insurance are available:
- Hospital Cover – for treatment in hospitals and related service, and,
- General Treatment (Extras) Cover – for extras services like dental, optical, physiotherapy, naturopathy, chiropractic and much more.
Hospital Cover
When you have Hospital Cover, you can choose to be treated in a Public Hospital or a Private Hospital as a private patient. Private Patients can generally choose their own Doctor or Specialist and may have access to a private room if one is available. When you are admitted to hospital as a Private Patient, you will be responsible for the hospital costs. Some or all of these costs may be covered by your private health insurance.
These costs can include:
- Accommodation
- Theatre
- Delivery Suite
- Intensive/Coronary Care
- Drugs, Dressings and other Consumables
- Prostheses
- Medical Costs – Medicare will usually refund 75% of the Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) fee for private medical services you receive in hospital. Your hospital cover will cover the remaining 25% of the Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) fee. Your hospital cover may also cover all or part of the balance of your Doctors and Specialists fees for the treatment you receive while you are a hospital patient.
General Treatment Cover (Extras Cover)
General Treatment Cover provides benefits for a range of services not covered by Hospital Cover or Medicare. The range of services covered varies between policies but can include:
- Dental
- Orthodontics
- Physiotherapy
- Chiropractic
- Homeopathy
- Naturopathy
- Remedial Massage
- Occupational and Speech Therapy
- Glasses and Contact Lenses
- Hearing Aids and other appliances
- Blood Pressure, Blood Glucose and other monitors
Ambulance Cover
Medicare does not cover ambulance transport. In some States, ambulance transport is funded by a compulsory levy (eg, in Queensland, a levy is added to electricity accounts) however in others, including Victoria, you are expected to arrange you own cover – or pay for the use of ambulance services yourself.
Some private health insurance policies include limited ambulance cover automatically while others may offer a refund of your annual Ambulance Service subscription.
If you are unsure if your private health insurance provides ambulance cover, contact us at Health Link Consultants for free assistance and advice.