Have you got private health cover?

[JC17fj74]

I'm thinking of getting private health cover, it worries me at the moment the wait times in the NHS would be backlogged and months and months wait to be seen via referral.
The prices I have looked at seem really high if you have got cover who are you with and how much do you pay? The lowest I could find was £70 a month 😕

We have cover with AXA. We get private GP, referrals & required treatment, self-referral to physio etc and cancer cover (access to non-NHS drugs and a guaranteed treatment start date). We pay £95 per month for 2 adults and 2 teenagers, but pre-policy conditions (so 4+ yrs ago) are not included.

OP that's the cancer cover we have, but even if treatment starts on the NHS we can still have expensive drugs that the NHS might not use if it's deemed they would help.

We have a policy with AXA. It didn’t help when my husband had a heart attack last April when all the hospitals were handed over to the NHS. He needed a triple heart bypass and had to wait 12 days before firstly the private hospital would take him and for him to get a private room and then wait until the hospital were doing private operations. The care after wasn’t great as again there was such a back log for scans and echocardiograms unless he went into London. The care he received was excellent throughout.

@JC17fj74 it is with BUPA. I am a little older than you, 37 and no medical conditions.

I have full health insurance through work so I'm not sure what it costs. I find it reassuring to have it but in 5 years I've never used it and have no idea where to start if I did need it. They make it very confusing and the excess charge makes it pretty useless to me, so I go through the NHS for everything as normal.

It's useful for issues that the NHS doesn't really cater well for. DH has it from work, and pays extra for the family. DD has had a lot of private counselling, full paid for. DH also has had a lot of physio and chiropractic, and acupuncture, again all fully paid for.

He was bitten by a tick a couple of years ago. GP's gave anti-biotics but then were uninterested in all the following issues he had due to Lyme disease. Private healthcare picked him up, and looked after him. He had 6 months off work, and during that time had body and brain scans, counselling and physio, and fit to work assistance. They took it seriously, whereas the NHS treatment for things like Lyme is pretty rubbish.

Yes through work thank God

DH and I both have it through work so we're covered twice under family policies, costs us each about £25 a month in tax. We keep both as I worry about being left without cover if one of us loses our job, and while you can't claim twice if I maxed out on e.g a knee on one policy and I could use the other for another issue. Never used them though but I've had to access private treatment at cost before so think its worthwhile

Another poster has reminded me that we used it for my dd when she was very poorly as a baby - she urgently needed an echocardiogram but the only consultant who did them at our local hospital was on annual leave and we were given no option other than to wait (she’d just been in intensive care ffs) . We used our insurance and were seen at BCH the next day - she had a CT scan to confirm results the day after that and was in surgery in less than a week. God knows how much longer we’d have had to wait if we’d relied on the NHS only. It’s very sad and it should be better for everyone, but if you can afford it I would definitely take it out.

Also - we were given a financial payout for every night dd spent in hospital (no private children’s hospitals, so they do this instead). It came to quite a lot, as she’d been in and out of hospital a lot during her first 6 months.

She has a very rare congenital heart defect - it was diagnosed immediately by the private consultant after months of messing around in the NHS.

The Six Week rule is a really easy way to help reduce your premiums so if you're comfortable with that, definitely go with it. Other ways include reducing the amount you can claim for outpatient cover, taking a smaller hospital list ie dont include central London, an excess and more. This is why I'd recommend talking to a professional - health insurance really is something that can vary from person to person, there isnt really a one size fits all option!

Mindy does make a really good point though - at the moment, most private hospitals are still caring for NHS patients and doing NHS treatment, including operations, over private patients (well, certainly the case in my area).

Yes OP, do discus options with a few companies.

I could half my premium but that would mean no out patient cover, which IMO is very important.

Most things can hopefully be sorted by a couple of specialists appointments and tests. If you don't have outpatients cover, you'd have to stump that cost yourself - considering most consultants are £250 a visit with tests on top that would soon mount up.

My plan has unlimited outpatient visits (could have had it £15 cheaper a month with it capped to three per year), and thank god as my baby has had to see a paediatrician four times since September. She doesn't need admitting to hospital, so a plan that didn't include outpatient cover would've been useless.

I also have a £250 excess which brings down the monthly cost - but once that's paid it covers us all for a year.

Well, not useless as we would have been referred to a consultant immediately (nhs wait times for her problem are up to 12 months, we were seen within a week), but we would have had to pay the consultation costs with no outpatient cover.

I wouldn't bother at the moment. I have been waiting over 6 months for an (albeit minor) operation privately due to the fact that the private hospital is dealing with the overflow from the NHS. It's an operation that would literally take 10 minutes so it's not like it's life changing. Maybe if it were important it would have happened.

No. I doubt I'd get it. I was refused life assurance due to MH issues once.

I'm sadly tempted to tell my dc's to get it as soon as they start work.

Yes via my husband’s work. Wouldn’t be without it.

It made the world of different when I needed an mri scan and could get it done the next day instead of waiting forever for a letter from the nhs with an appointment for a time weeks away and then likely be cancelled.

would never want to be at the mercy of NHS by choice

Let's hope you never need Accident & Emergency, High Dependency or Intensive Care. In the UK, they are only ever provided by the NHS.

Any private hospital will include this provision, perhaps biuried in the small print.

I pay (some £220/year) through work for the highest level of cover offered. In twenty one years, I've only ever used it twice, once for a broken limb and again for investigation of a potential eye issue which turned out to be nothing using more sensitive measurment devices.

DH, on the other hand, has more than got our money's worth over the years. He has tested the boundaries, too, so that we now know that anything considered chronic (ie not expected to get better) is excluded.

For acute conditions, our experience has absolutely been that the differences are in the over all service delivery rather than any difference in the level of medical expertise provided. Rather than be referred by a GP then wait for a hospital appointment, once referred (and with cover confirmed by the insurance company) a phone call to the specialist's medical secretary will be answered or returned in minutes, rather than hours. Appointments are flexed around any other business or private committments.

It's easy to see why it makes sense for a large company to provide this benefit, in order to minimise any disruption in the time off required. It does make me very loath to retire, I would not want to be without private medical insurance. I can no longer imagine having to just wait passively for an appointment rather than being aksed when would suit me to see the doctor. I also understand that the cost of cover will increase significantly with age so that it may become unaffordable even to pay myself. Geriatrics account for a majority of the NHS costs.

While I admire the NHS, I appreciate that people end up queueing because they do not have access to the more usual price mechanism. I would much prefer the concept of mandatory health insurance, usually provided though not for profit organisations, funded largely by employers with a public safety net for students and the unemployed.

I also have it through work. Ours is now with BUPA and I've used it a couple of times. Very thankful I had it last year as the NHS had a 26 weeks wait for investigation procedure and then no doubt similar again for subsequent surgery and that was before Covid hit. I got all investigations and treatment done in 3 months going privately.

Let's hope you never need Accident & Emergency, High Dependency or Intensive Care. In the UK, they are only ever provided by the NHS.

That’s simply not true. A&E perhaps, but privately hospitals are increasingly offering private A&E plus they pretty much all have intensive care and high dependency

@Mumblechum0

We pay £270 a month which is quite a chunk. Have never claimed on it, weirdly, as although I use a private GP I always forget about the insurance and just pay on the desk.

You are an insurers dream!

Agree with @Fuckadoodledoooo. If you are going to get cover absolutely get out patients. That is where you are most likely to need to claim and will see most benefit in terms of getting appointments quicker.

I would have a look at the Vitality cover as it comes with a rewards programme that almost makes it cost neutral - if you would have bought/used the things they offer anyway. For example just by joining you get 50% of trainers and fit bit watches etc and regular rewards though cafe Nero, cinema tickets (when it's open), so counts hotel vouchers etc there's loads.

I used mine last year when I needed speedy surgery that on the nhs was 'weeks' even though I was high priority. Saw private consultant on Friday and had the op on the Monday....it's totally worth it for the things you can't plan for but only if you can realistically afford it.

we haven't currently but am seriously considering it. DS (12) has just been diagnosed with pectus carinatum (pigeon chest) the NHS won't fund treatment for this so we are having to pay out over £3000 for it. I have a skin condition that I have had for years and it has been really bad since last July, cant get seen by dermatologist at all depsite months and months of trying.
TBH the NHS is just not really fit for purpose anymore.