Unpicking private healthcare

[Excitedannie]

I'm looking into private healthcare and am at the very start of the journey. I've done a comparison website just to start my research, and there seems to be three main levels - treatment and full diagnosis; treatment and part diagnosis and treatment only. I assume with the latter that you stay in the NHS route (ie blood tests, X rays etc) until they've diagnosed and which point you then decide whether to have the treatment private?

What I'm asking is whether there seems to be a main level that most people go for.

And it seems that most people just go with Bupa but there are lots of other companies - does anyone have any experience with the others?

Any opinions gratefully received!

I'd go for the first. for me the main reason going private is cos the the process takes so long on the NHS so i'd find it pointless waiting all that time for NHS to find what's wrong

Depends what you need it for. Do you want outpatient treatment or just inpatient? Is it just UK you want or worldwide? Also bear in mind that any conditions you already have or had in the last 7 years may not be covered too. Hey a bunch of quotes and go from there.

We recently tried to port DH's company BUPA over to a personal policy. Nightmare process and very expensive. We think it may be cheaper to self pay for private consultants and diagnostics, and then go NHS for treatment. We have already effectively done that, as it happened all three of us were mid treatment when our cover ran out, and all of the private consultants just pushed us over to their NHS lists.

Thanks for your responses. So my thinking behind this is that I am on the waiting list for a hip replacement with the NHS - privately it would cost me £19k. I think it's obvious that my other one will need doing in future so it makes sense to start insurance now so that I could at least have that done privately.

I don't particularly have an issue with the wait for things such as X-rays, scans etc - in fact the NHS has been pretty good. But it's the waiting list for operations - that's why I was tempted by the "treatment only" or "treatment and part diagnosis".

I think I'll probably have to get in touch with a broker and ask all my daft questions!!!

Agreed.

the blocker is different depending on what’s wrong with you…

eg.
if you have suspected cancer for example… private is helpful to get you diagnosed faster and then get you back into the nhs system.

for other conditions NHS will diagnose you fairly promptly then put you on an 18m waitlist which private helps you skip (I am experiencing this right now)

I suspect any hip replacement would not be covered, as you have already had/just about to have one. It's the exemptions that are a ball ache, and if you want to cover them, it's really expensive.

I always pop up on these threads to say to avoid bupa - I used to be a private medical secretary. The first rule of private medical insurance is to always remember- they don’t want to pay out. Read everything in full detail several times. They will try not to pay. Exeter friendly (now the Exeter) was always my favourite one to deal with as they didn’t seem to be quite as awful as everyone else.

@GreatGateauxsby interestingly I found we were generally slower at cancer diagnosis in private than the nhs - because eg. If your consultant goes on a two week holiday you don’t necessarily see anyone else til they get back. However this was a few years ago and the nhs two week wait has gone now anyway so
probably irrelevant now.

I would’ve said this too but our experience of Bupa has definitely been a lot better in recent years, many consultants at work (I’m an AHP) have said the same thing. Within the last year DD has had 2 operations, never ending scans and consultant appointments etc and they’ve been so easy to deal with, everything covered without fuss. Speaking to DD’s spinal surgeon he has his wife and kids covered under Bupa now so can’t be that bad to work with anymore!

In my opinion if you’re not going to go fully comprehensive then there’s not much point in having insurance. There’s not much benefit to a policy that doesn’t actually cover anything you need done. As a family we genuinely wouldn’t be without our Bupa now with the state of the NHS. Worth it for the peace of mind alone.

I think the wait times or “guidelines for window to diagnose” or whatever it’s called is longer now.

my current provider lets me swap and switch… so if I call them and give my preferred consultant and then when I try and book they aren’t available I can just swap and go with someone else.

Agree with @goldfootball butninwas with bupa about 5 years back.

i am with WPA now they are alright.

my fave was actually Cigna…if I could switch back to them I would (my health care is via work) they were just great to deal with…

I’m with axa. I have the full option. My cover is 2 consultations a year, all diagnostic tests when requested by a consultant and treatment but no cancer cover.

Ive used it in the past for orthopaedics, ENT, and breast biopsies.