Private Health Insurance... OR NOT?, which way did you go, and would you again? Options

[Rain...]

Hello Ladies,

Im trying to decided whether to get Private Health Insurance.

DH and I will be TTC around Mid next year, so If i want Private Health insurance i need to get on it now.
My Dh thinks Public Health is the way to go, only because with his daughter they had the baby at a pubic hospital, and then were moved to the Private hospital (as the had private Health Insurance), which he thought the hospital was crap compared to the Private one. HOWEVER this was in Launceston, Tasmania, and we are now in Hobart, Tasmania.

What extra do you get by having private health insurance??

What are the main differences throughout your pregnancies and labor?


What would you do? can you tell me your experiences, and thoughts etc,

Thankyou

xoxox

[**** Sarah and Adam ****]

What extra do you get by having private health insurance??

Well you are provided more options depending on the hospital and your level of cover. This might include a private room (if availalbe) in a public hospital or private room in a private hospital. Can also include shorter waiting lists for some specialists and often your insurance will cover things where the specialist has a difference between what medicare cover and what they charge

What are the main differences throughout your pregnancies and labor?

Well we had private with our first pregnancy and with this one. However we did not use it with our first. We went through the public system. I only have private insurance because we were paying too much of the medicare levy because of our salaries when we were both working were too high. We just kept it since then despite me not working because it makes sense when we have a family and it seems to be the way the health system is going.
Anyway, I digress with having the private insurance it did not change my needs and wants for my pregnancy and birth. I believe that the public system is adequate, and actually I would choose many public hospitals above many private ones. Same as this time, we are going public. The private insurance has provided us additional rebates for something things and if we need a peadiatrician etc it may help with that. We have fairly minimal cover though.

What would you do? can you tell me your experiences, and thoughts etc,

Well I kind of went into it above. I grew up in a family where my dad was a public servant and my mum a nurse in the public system. I believe the public system is adequate and in actual fact often for high risk patients etc often they are transferred and treated as a private patient in a public hospital so for me I would never select to be treated in a private hospital, well not for pregnancy.
In terms of other benefits like specialists etc I think private health insurance is benficial...but I would sign up irrespective of pregnancy plans.

i hope that all makes sense. My personal opinion.

[SuzieR]

My first I had no PHI and went through the public system. It was horrible and I will never go public again. I never had the same midwife on my visits, so they never knew who you were, or what was happening. They mixed up my chart with another lady with the same surname. Sent me to have the 2 hour glucose test before I even had the first glucose test, when the other lady was the one that needed the 2 hour test.

About a month after Jaime was born I was having a lot of pain. Was referred to an Ob/Gyn who after an ultrasound found I had a cyst on my ovary (unrelated) and an enlarged uterus. Upon closer inspection during my laparoscopy to remove the cyst, found the midwife had left part of the placenta in there!

Plus, my sister had a baby last year and was sent home about 20 hours after birth from a public hospital. No way am I doing that. I will never go public again, and am paying $60 a week for PHI to make sure I never have to.

[Decembergirl]

Mint we're in a similar position to you and took out PHI top level cover for both hospital and extras in April this year. Our two main reasons:

1. We knew in advance that there were extenuating circumstances surrounding me getting pregnant and financially that meant we were much better off with PHI.

2. The public hospital here is very pushed for space and has a very limited number of OB's available for private patients. There's a bit of a "push out the baby, then push out the mother" syndrome in that hospital, and often women are turfed after just 12 hours because they need the beds. That's in stark contrast to the experience we've had with friends who've birthed in the private hospital (which is right across the road from the public one), where they were given all the time in the world and could basically stay as long as they felt they needed to be there. To me, as someone who's going to be a first time mum with no family support, I wanted to be sure I was comfortable with going home, not forced out in order for a bed to be available for someone else.

HTH.

[AK2]

I didn't have an awful experience with public health, but i would choose to go private next time.

Like someone said above, i never had the same midwife twice, so i spent half of most appointments telling them about my entire medical history- which got exhausting, and of course i'm not a doctor, and i can't remember everything!

I also really wanted to go home quickly after the birth- i hated being in hospital and wanted to be at home with DH to figure it out by myself. They insisted on keeping me there until the OB could see me- which was of course, 24 hours later :S

Nothing went particulary wrong, but the small inconveiences was not worth it. I'd rather pay and get top quality service.

[Monica]

The only thing that I will add is that first labours can be long and with a private hospital, they won't let you labour for too long before intervening (their philosophy "the sun will never set twice on a labouring woman").

[Windsor]

Hey Mint

What extra do you get by having private health insurance??
With my PHI they have a mothercraft program where you get home based assistance, Lactation Consultant, nappy service and MCHN visits with the number of each determined by how early you discharge and if you had a CS or vaginal birth. I didn't use this though as I stayed in the full 5 days after my CS and had extra visits from the MCHN (who was a LC as well) due to some issues.

My PHI also have a $1500 midwife benefit but if you see an OB at any stage (as I had to right at the end for a CS ) its not payable. So I could have covered antenatal classes and any independedt midwife costs although I dont know how this will work after June 2010.

My insurer is DefenceHealth by the way and they have a pretty sweet deal on most things.

What are the main differences throughout your pregnancies and labor?

I chose not to go private as I wanted midwife care and to check into a private hospital you need to come under the care of a doctor with practicing rights at that hospital. So even with me having a midwife benefit I could never go private with 'just' an independent midwife .

I saw caseload midwives at my local public hospital, saw the same mw the whole way through except for one checkup when she was away. You cant birth at that hospital anymore and they are meant to transfer you out after if you request it but they decided to shut it down the DAY OF MY BIRTH due to stupid political staffing decisions so I had to stay in the big area hospital but I got the room to myself as much as possible, free tv and newspapers (great when in there for five days!) and it was fine.

What would you do? can you tell me your experiences, and thoughts etc,

I would get PHI but still go public. I plan to next time because I will be having a VBAC and know the local midwives will be very supportive. There are only 3 obs in town and they all practice at the public hospital anyway and none of them will really want to do a VBAC apparently.

Also, I had heaps of problems afterwards and ended up having 2 procedures under local at the ER (public) and then when I was referred to a private surgeon got into the private hospital for day surgery that afternoon. It was only the Christmas period and all the private people being on holidays that stopped me getting it done by him straight away.

[nephthys]

I have PHI and wouldn't have it any other way. I adored my Obs, love that I was known by name at the clinic and it felt reassuring I was guaranteed quality of care. The public system is adequate, but it seems more hit-and-miss from the stories I've heard, including my sisters. My obs wasn't going to let me go more than a week over due and the quality of care in the hospital after was fantastic. I had my own room with ensuite, help at the push of a button and those first four days in hospital were wonderful because I could get to know my son while I healed and rested.

The thing with going to a private hospital is you have to be prepared to pay for almost everything up front and you're reimbursed later. It's best you are prepared with a few thousand in savings if you can manage it. In total, I was out of pocket around $2,000; well worth it in my opinion!

You can't go private without an Obs, which means you are more likely to have some sort of intervention, but I didn't mind that. This is also an extra expense because you pay for each appt as you go.

I was fortunate enough to have had a complication-free pregnancy and labour so in theory I could have gone a route with less monitoring, but overall I was very very happy going this way and will do it again next time.


ETA - my PHI paid for all the hospital-stay costs and the anaesthetist, which was about $6K.

[***Bella***]

I am about to start TTCing in the next few weeks and some months back I went and changed my PHI to cover pregnancy. I am happy to have done that. At this stage I plan on having my baby in a public hospital. But with my private cover and hopefully a private room.

[♥ Emsie ♥]

I had both my kids through public system - and I wouldn't have it any other way to be honest Even if I had access to an OB, I wouldn't use them - I am a big believer in midwives, natural and no intervention births. IMO (and this is just my opinion) there seems to be a lot more uneccessary intervention and uneccessary c-secs through OB's than there is with midwif eonly care.

I have never had PHI so I don't have anything to compare it to sorry.

Only thing with Ash, is when I was in hospital I shared a room. I said that we'd go private for the next, but then I found out that in the WCH here in adelaide, it doesn't matter if you are public or private, the single rooms are for ladies who have c-secs or complications.

[beachgurl]

One difference between the public and private out my way (not sure if this is the same everywhere else) is that the obs is responsible for making all the decisions about your care when you are in the private hospital. In the public, the obs comes in once the doctor on duty believes it is time for them to deliver.

As some of the others have said, the public system generally lets you labour longer than in the private. There is a higher intervention rate because of this.

Not including obs visits (which were $100 per visit) I ended up about 2K out of pocket.

As for the private room, I had PHI in a private hospital and had a c/section and still had to share.

I thought about having the next one (if I have another one) in the public system and dropping the PHI, but DH won't have it.

[cobie1987]

I had private when pregnant with my son, and i went through the whole thing on the public and private system. Even my birth, and the wasnt really any difference between the two for me. Even on private i didnt get a private room. The only thing i got was a newspaper everyday i was in hospital.

I had a OB who cost us extra, and in the end she wasnt there for the birth, the public system midwives were, so next (as my private was cancelled) i will be going public.

[Allee]

I went public. Before I was pregnant, I am ashamed to say I was so snobby about the public health system. I always said I would go private, and there was "no way on Earth I'd share a room with anyone". Well, we looked at PHI and decided against it. The cost just wasn't worth it to us, especially as my only real reason for wanting it was to have a private room and to have hubby stay with me. (Turns out private rooms aren't guaranteed, and even if you do get a private room at my hospital not all rooms can have hubby stay anyway.)

I didn't care about having shared care between several midwives - they were all lovely and they took notes on EVERYTHING I said so there was no repeating myself at the next visit, if it was a different midwife.

I had no problems with not being a "priority" because I didn't have private cover - I went to the hospital (to the antenatal ward) with a horrible rash sometime during the third trimester and they admitted me to a room (one of the empty birthing suites) straight away and monitored me and did a few tests. I was seen to straight away, and all for free.

I laboured for 30-odd hours (not all at the hospital) and when intervention was needed (forceps delivery) an obs was consulted. In the end I had the same obs overseeing the birth that my SIL, who went private, did, only she paid thousands and I didn't. And like Cobie said, your obs isn't guaranteed to be there for the birth, anyway.

And for the first night of my 2 night stay I got a private room all to myself anyway.

So now after a positive experience I am no longer snobby about the public system. (And I will be going public again for the next one.)

[Rosita]

I don't have PHI it was something we were going to look at, but fell pregnant quicker than antcipated.

My expirence with our local public hospital was fantastic and I can't praise the midwives there enough.

For appointments it was a bit of a cattle call, lots of women waiting around and lots of waiting. I saw 3 different midwives. One would do blood pressure, wee tests and get records and everyhting together. I then saw two different ones for appointment but that was only due to one leaving and the next beng a replacement. The waits were sometime due to the Ob being on the ward (only 2 that work at the hospital) or long consults with midwife. She was fantastic and if there was every a question of an issue she was onto it, send you to the ward or the Ob (probably not helping in the delay).

I was in hospital from thursday night to monday lunch time and most of the midwives were on similar shifts during this period so I knew when certain midwives were on and knew their names. THe thurday night (then night before induction) I had my own room (probably so the other ladies didn't scare me with stories of their births). When I was having my induction as I was in and out of the delivery room for half a day they had it set up as "my room" that day and left it just for my use.

The midwife who inserted the first lot of gel on thursday night was on the first night of a 4 night set of shifts. On the friday night she delivered Angus, Saturday night she took him for a few hours so I could sleep, and Sunday night came to say goodbye before she left and wished me luck.

After Angus' birth, I was in a four bed ward but with only one other person there most of the time. There was another lady who had baby but left the same day (at her insistance. The midwives prefered she stayed but she was set ine leaving). On the lst night I was there a midwive moved the other lady so we each had our own rooms.

I stayed until I was confident with feeding and buzzed and had a midwife help with attachment until this time even if just to watch to make sure it was ok.

As for the food, I have never been to hospital before so have nothing to compare it against. However, there was a lady who came around every morning to collect the meal slips and as I am vego made sure I had something to eat and told me she wanted to make sure I got proper food.

I do live in a regional area though and so didn't have some of the issues that sometime people have atlarger city hospitals, not sure if this had an impact on it. I would definitely go there again.

[bluenomi]

It really doesn't make much difference for me, the public materinty ward is around the corner from the private one in my hospital and they share some things but I wanted to go private.

DH deals with the medical industry for work and felt more comfortable with me being under the care of an OB and since I've been paying for pregnancy on my PHI for years I figured I better get some use out of it! Plus I want my own room, I'm not the type to want to share, I like my privacy and really don't want to be sharing after giving birth. They only have single rooms where I'm having the baby so I know I'll get one. DH can also stay with me if I go private which isn't an option if I went public.

I can't tell you about labour since I haven't gotten that far yet! I know people who have gone both private and public at my hospital and they all liked the options they went with so I think it depends on each person.

It does cost me more to go private, the $3000 plus OB fee isn't covered by PHI or medicare (we only get $100 back since we haven't hit the safety net and probably won't by then ) but besides our $500 hospital excess we don't pay anything for the hospital stay.