I'll be overseas for up to 5 months and wanted to avoid paying for unnecessary private health cover while abroad. Has anyone done this in a specific way to avoid impacting lifetime cover loading?
Pausing Private Healthcare and Lifetime Loading
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Oh excellent! Yes, not very obvious that this is an option. Do you know if those 1094 days build back up at all over time or is that just a maximum over the course of one's life?
i believe maximum but no need to be taken in one go you can take few here and there. but just take it all when you are young. less risk to get injured
but just 1094 in your life and the record will carry forward if you change provider.yeah i only know after dating a chick that work at medibank years ago
Thanks for the info :)
or is that just a maximum over the course of one's life?
There is a hack to get more days if you get extra lives.
And how does one obtain the extra lives?
You can just suspend your membership. For example:
Wait so I can 'pause' my healthcover for up to 1094 without any sort of penalties? and I assume turn it on if I need it urgently?
do I have to prove i'm holidaying or anything? or just ring up and suspend it?
I paused my membership whilst I was overseas for about a year. I vaguely remember having to show proof of leaving and reentering the country using my plane tickets. I just called up to suspend it and may have shown the proof on return to resume it in store. I also thought your cover didn't actually work overseas anyway. The health insurance fund just offered some discounted overseas insurance rates or something.
This didn't affect my lifetime loading.
so sounds like suspending while oversees and just not having cover for 1094 days are two different things. You can not have cover for 1094 days and not affect loading, but it sounds like you would still have to redo waiting periods.
but if they agree to suspend it while overseas it doesn't count towards the 1094 days and you don't have to rewait periods. But you do have to legit be overseas
If it all possible try to suspend your membership. It should be pretty easy. Even if you forget, some PHI let you backdate a suspension the first time if you didn't know about suspensions.
I wouldn't be too frivolous with those 1094 days. They are supposed to be used for small gaps in your cover.
Going overseas - if you cancel your hospital insurance after your Lifetime Health Cover base day to go overseas for at least one continuous year, the days you spend outside of Australia are not counted towards the 1094 Days of Absence. You can return to Australia for periods of up to 90 consecutive days, per visit, and be considered to be overseas. Any periods of 90 days or more which you spend in Australia during this time will be deducted from the 1094 Days of Absence.
Link https://www.privatehealth.gov.au/health_insurance/surcharges…
The webpage also indicates a trade off when your suspend policy for overseas travel. In some cases, the ongoing payment for maintaining cover would be less than the MLS liability - but that is dependent on a person's income. So for some people, they end up saving money by not suspending their membership.
you can put a hold on extras which has no impact upon lifetime loading (hospital only)
there are 2. hospital and extras
the hospital: yes everyone entitle to holiday period = Permitted days without hospital cover
If you have hospital cover on or after your base day, you are entitled to 1,094 days without hospital cover that won’t affect your LHC loading status.
the extras has nothing todo with lifetime loading you dont need to have extras ever if you want.
https://www.medibank.com.au/health-insurance/understanding-h…
scroll down near middle to find the topic above.
not many people know this, obviously the provider doesnt want people skip 1094 days not paying them