For those that don’t or those with minimal private health cover, have you reconsidered in the wake and escalating nature of Coronavirus?
In the event of an outbreak, would you brave the public system or would you opt for the private option? Thoughts?
Why would public & private be any different with an outbreak?
Potentially level of care and staffing levels? Not sure, hence keen to get your thoughts as per the post. What level of PH cover do you have?
public health sector has better staff to patient ratio. Yes, I'm a registered nurse and both worked in public and private.
I experienced worse with private. Public much better, but lucky if you’re deemed severe enough to be put in front of the queue.
Do you think the private hospitals will take you with the virus? Doubt it.. you will be on a makeshift bed at Parramatta stadium.
Great question. How did they manage say with SARS? Will be interesting to know though!
Yep, time will tell I guess.
I tell you a story, when SARS broke out in Vietnam, there was 5 dead, the outbreak occurred at one of the best private hospital in Hanoi where at having air-conditioned hospital bed or ventilationmachine was a luxury only few could afford, most public don't even had those. Almost all of the deaths occurred at that hospital (it did spread out to others at the public system too). There was a nurse that was treated and survived at that hospital (she worked there and was in contact with patient 0). One of the journalist doing doco about the outbreak told her that her survival was a miracle because out of everyone getting the virus and being put on ventilation support, she was the only one that survived
If the crunch comes, as I guess it will, I think the patients will be allocated treatment according to severity or it seems older age as it appears the outcomes tend to be worse for them.
So, I suspect victims irrespective of public / private cover, will be sent to the best facility according to need! not the ability to pay!. I have private cover, but I'm not expecting that will be of much use if I happen to require treatment.
I think we will be in for a harrowing time, I pray it will not be the case!.
I share your thoughts. I’m on a basic cover, hence was considering if I should increase the coverage to include things like nervous system, respiratory etc to name a few. I’d imagine that private and public system coming together to support a common triage and allocation service, will require quite a fair bit of negotiation to take place. Will come down to humanity vs profitability… Interesting times.
Based on your post here, you should probably consider better coverage for your nervous system
I reckon aye. Better support those greedy capitalists right? wink
Actually staffing is usually worse in private hospitals. General day surgery have reduced staffing for nurses compared to public hospitals and if anything ever goes wrong you would want to be in public where it can be escalated. There are many horror stories from both public and private but public would be the way to go for me
"brave the public system" ???
It's a perfectly good system.
If anything I'd put more trust in a public hospital to consider the community health risks and provide great treatment and containment.
I don’t disagree. I’m assuming that you don’t have private health insurance? Or you may do to avoid the Medicare levy?
I did, but been in Japan for the last few years. Never knew what I was getting for the money and don't intend to get back on it when I return. Would rather my money went to the public system anyway. Single payer system is the way to go, despite what some might say about taxpayer costs.
The Japanese system is pretty good, I think because they're encouraged to actually use it. Everyone gets an comprehensive annual health check, which would pick things up early and makes it hard to deny a slide into obesity. Healthy population would also keep costs down.
There is so much wrong with the public health system. Gross negligence in various cases.
It's world-class, there's is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In cases of quarantinable diseases you're going to be treated exactly the same regardless of health cover.
I went a few times to the Albert hospital in Melbourne. Can consistently only say good thing about it. Always barely any wait and very caring and professional staff. I don't even know why I'm paying for private hospital.
No.
Why do you think private cover will give you any better care? It's a virus. There's no cure for it when it infects you.
Hence my question. Thoughts?
I mean. Go to GP, hydrate yourself and rest at home.
I don't have private. Have paid out of pocket for private on occasion. Public actually has better staff and facilities generally.
I don't think coronavirus is going to be a massive deal. I could be wrong.
Why would private be better? Public will have access to government stockpiles and will also have access to as much resources as the government can provide it, which will be a lot due to Australia being a well educated and a rich country.
The only time I would even consider private is if I was in a developing country. It would be more likely that the private hospitals will have more resources than public hospitals in developing countries.
People fundamentally misunderstands private health insurance.
Either you can pay for private or the medicare levy surcharge. The government gives you a subsidy to buy junk policies, instead of paying surcharge you are just paying it to private hospitals. It is the government giving private hospitals and health insurance subsidy but NOT appearing like they are doing so directly.
If your gross premium less what you get back from health policy is less than you would pay for medicare levy surcharge then you are doing the right thing. Otherwise it is pretty much throwing good money after bad.
Don't believe for a second it is for your benefit. It is for the politicians and their mates.
100% agree the MLS is BS. But those junk policy premiums go to insurers not private hospitals. In many cases the junk policies won’t even get you into a private hospital, just private patient in a public hospital, which is hardly different to public patient in a public hospital.
The big winners here are private health insurers who get to charge for policies that will be seldom claimed on.
Whilst I don't disagree that PHI is more about money shuffling than health care there's still value in it. There are doors that can only be opened by PHI and an important one for me is mental health care. The variance in the standard of care between public and private mental health facilities is significant. There are treatment options in private that simply aren't available in public.
The other factor with PHI that is always ignored because human beings are blind to long term consequence is ageing. Not having PHI when you're young and healthy is fine, but you will get older and sicker and there's nothing you can do about that.
Health insurers will never pay more than they take in plus investment returns less profits.
If you pay enough for mental health care policy you can pay for it privately.
If you look at most old Asian people not born or grew up in Australia especially migrants. They don't need all these hip replacements and have high incidents of persistent conditions. Read into what you will.
I am going to look after myself and ditch private health insurance when I retire below the MLS threshold.
The same can be said for most of our policies isn't it?
"Is less than you would pay for medicare levy surcharge"
I'm curious, how do we know that information? Is that a % of gross income?
Thanks mate!
So yearly premium - claims needs to be below MLS for the health policy to be worth it
@ShouldIBuyIt: If your family income is 180k then assume 1% is $1.8k. If your policy is going to cost $2k but you get $200 for optical that you will use to buy contact lenses and $600 dental you will use assume value is $200 + $600 = $800. Therefore your policy is costing you net $1.2k which is $600 less than you would pay in the surcharge.
Hope the above is clear.
What difference does it make for Coronavirus? If you think you’ve got top tier private health cover and so rock up to the ED of a private hospital when you get symptoms, you’re going to be in for an expensive surprise.
Expensive surprise? Care to elaborate?
I think a lot of the above have already pointed it out, but private health cover isn't gonna factor into how you're treated if you're unfortunate enough to develop severe Coronavirus.
It's extremely unlikely you'd go to a private hospital, since that's mainly about elective and/or non-emergency related surgeries.
In a public hospital, jumping the queue isn't really gonna matter. Acute Coronavirus would get you straight into isolation and/or the ICU. Additionally, there's no such thing as a private ICU bed, it's just the ICU.
So, private health cover brings nothing to the table here.
Even with private insurance, you are able to use private or public hospitals. You get to choose your doctor's, and have the option of a private room in a public hospital if available. It's more about options and reduced waiting times.
This largely applies only to elective surgeries.
If you're rushed to your local public hospital ICU to be isolated due to Coronavirus, there are no options, so whether you have insurance is largely irrelevant.
Private hospitals aren't gonna want anything to do with this, unless the government somehow ropes them in.
So public hospitals are taking in people with Coronavirus
Of course. If you're unfortunate enough to be in the higher severity band and need to be on a respirator, then you're gonna be in a public hospital.
I do know in NSW some private hospitals have emergency departments. Whether they have the sort of equipment or staff required to keep patients for prolonged intensive care, i do not know.
A large majority of private hospitals do not have a well functioning emergency department or ICU. They are geared toward the money making stuff like surgery maternity oncology dialysis etc etc. Saving someone involved in a major crash or who has respiratory distress is apparently inot money making but delivering babies or putting in a penis pump is.
Tell me more about penis pumps. Asking for a friend.
In the event of an outbreak you will not be given a choice. Do you think any of the people repatriated from Wuhan, et al. to Christmas Island and that abandoned mining town were asked what their preferences were?
A pandemic is a public health issue and the government will be managing all aspects of it. You don't get a say. That will maximise everyone's chances of living through it.
If there is an outbreak and public hospital emergencies are flooded with coronavirus patients
there will be beds (isolation) allocated for these patients, which cost more $$, more nurses required, and physical beds are occupied (on already stretched public resources especially winter flu season is also coming)
as the result of that, less elective operations (non life-threatening, non limb-threatening) will be performed (no resources)
1) Private hospital (at this stage) UNLIKELY take any of the coronavirus patients, they instead will offer to "relieve public hospital pressures" by performing essential elective operations, that means government will fund public patients to have ESSENTIAL operations in private hospitals, and that's more expansive for government, too
private patients will still have their operations as usual
I personally think this is good, because you will have infection-free private hospitals to perform clean operations.
However, I'm not sure how long private hospitals can stay infection-free if there's a pandemic
2) if you don't have private insurance, your wait list time will LIKELY be even longer, likely much longer (there's already a long wait list, and limited resources, and new illness)
3) if there is a full-blown outbreak in both private and public hospitals
having private health insurance at that stage unlikely change any treatments
total numbers of operations are likely to be reduced anyway
situations will still be: private patients will pay to get faster treatments, and public patients still have to wait for their free treatments
In terms of specific treatments for coronavirus, you will get treated eventually
speed and level of care varies accordingly to the severity of your illness in public hospitals, there won't be much differences whether you have insurance or not, when hospitals are flooded with ill people
conclusions: non-essential operation wait list will be a lot longer, essential treatments hopefully will stay the same, if you don't have private health insurance
Great balanced view. The other scenario to cobsider is if someone has both Coronavirus and requires some sort of operations. I wonder of private hospital will admit them? Will be interesting to see how the health system as a whole will manage this.
Great discussion thus far!
The other scenario to cobsider is if someone has both Coronavirus and requires some sort of operations. I wonder of private hospital will admit them?
That's a big, fat no.
Allowing a Coronavirus carrier in for elective surgery would require the private hospital to have the appropriate isolation environment, and the equipment, training, etc to stop you from infecting the staff and other patients.
My view is, private hospitals will try to stay "infection-free" for as long as possible, because that's financially better for them, less occupied beds, less cleaning, less isolation required, less nursing intensive etc
If you have private health insurance, and negative virus status, private hospital will greet you
If you have negative virus status, and government funds you for essential operations, private hospital will greet you, too
If you become a carrier, no matter your insurance status, you will likely have to wait in public hospitals….. until one day, all public and private hospitals are infested with virus
Yeah, spot on.
until one day, all public and private hospitals are infested with virus
I'm not sure infested is the right word… but I get what you're saying. Hospitals are generally pretty sterile environments & they're likely to double their efforts as things progress.
Although, once it gets into the general population to the point that isolating every carrier is impractical, there will be a lot of self-isolation.
So, I'd expect that if you're ill (in the absence of a widely accessible test, we're still guessing at people who may have been exposed, or simply waiting for symptoms), and not ill enough to warrant hospitalisation, you won't be allowed near any hospital.
I found this an interesting read.
Yeah, nah. That’s not what private insurance/hospitals are for. Besides afaik most private hospitals don’t have ED.
Incorrect. Private hospitals do have ED. You have to pay for all the tests, and it’s not covered by your PHI as you’re not considered an in-patient.
Some do. In fact very few do.
Private health cover is for the mis-educated and the rich (those who need to have a private room, or those who would be paying the medicare levy surcharge).
There are few reasons (but there are reasons!) to have private health cover, and to opt for it when things go pear shaped. Coronavirus isn't one of those reasons I'm afraid.
And I'm betting you're getting a private room if you've contracted the coronavirus and require hospitalisation, regardless of your private health cover status.
Ehhh, it's also a key requirement of some work visas as not eligible for medicare.
but there are reasons!
Like mentioned, there ARE reasons to get private health, but by and large most of the population would be pissing their money away with it.
If that weren't the case, there would be no need to have the medicare levy surcharge. Remember the time before medicare levy surcharge?
At this point and time, I would assume anything coronavirus related (resources and patients) would be highest priority in public , in addition to actual regular emergencies. If I'm sick (not corona related), I would be on the bottom of the wait list. For that reason, I've purchased private.
I'm curious. What sort of ailments do you think you'd have a better outcome having private insurance compared to going through the public system?
It's not about which outcome for aliments is better, I would say both should be good. Reason is for as stated above.
Huh?