New to the UK- Chronic disease and private health insurance

[OztoLdn]

Does anyone know if private health insurance covers a chronic disease?
My family and I will be moving to London in a couple of months.
I have a rare chronic disease in an eye, and I’m wondering if treatment and appointments will be covered by private health insurance, I know I can go through NHS but I want to know my options and see if anyone has been in a similar position.
thanks

It really depends on the policy - you will need to soeak to your insurer.

If you're not ordinarily resident in the uk you are likely not eligible for routine nhs care so pls dont assume that you can be seen routinely.

We are getting a work visa and the company will pay the NHS health surcharge so yes I will have access to NHS.

Almost certainly it will be excluded.

If you can afford to self fund I'd see a specialist privately at Moorfields and pay as you go.

If you need intervention and regular checks you do not want to be stuck on an NHS waiting list though I am extra touchy about this as it happened to my DH and he lost half his vision while waiting.

When you get a quote, you will have to declare all conditions and whether to include or not. Get the price, make decision. It's likely to be expensive to cover known issues.

It's worth noting that you generally can't / don't use private healthcare for urgent care if that's something your condition causes (for example if you are prone to retinal tears). Moorfields in London is also an excellent eye hospital.

If you can get on to a policy through work then most of the time they will cover pre-existing conditions. If you just have a personal policy though then your current conditions won’t be covered for a number of years

Problem is that I need to be seen monthly or every 6 weeks, so going private would be at least £ 300-400 and that’s without treatment.
I imagine that if there was an emergency I would be seen straight away in the A&E at Moorfield Eye Hospital right?
And I suppose that once you are “in” the public system you can continued to be see. Regularly if the condition requires so of course?

It will be through work.
The provider is AXA, I will check the policy in detail.

That’s really good news then - hopefully they will cover everything

If it's through work that's perfect.

We self fund but have also been to Moorfields A&E when DH was having issues after an op, they seemed very used to having private patients turn up.

His consultant even saw him on a Sunday and used a room in the A&E.

I used to have AXA through work and it covered some pre-existing conditions but not chronic conditions at all.

I don't know anything about eyes or your condition but I do have a chronic condition and continuing NHS care. I just wanted to say that you might not need to massively panic if it is not covered. My condition (although not rare like yours) is very well treated by the NHS. I get very regular check-ups, reliable prescriptions and a good range of treatment options. I've also had treatment for the same condition whilst living abroad in a country whose health system is much better resourced than the NHS and the treatment in both countries was very similar. If anything I had greater choice of treatments in the UK. In case that's reassuring!

Thank you that is reassuring indeed!
Can I ask with chronic diseases if you are under NHs care do you get regular appointments?
My conditions can be stable but when acute can take time to stabilise and when that happens I need to be seen every 4-6 weeks and waiting more could be detrimental for the vision in that eye.

I have an eye condition which means I am at high risk of retinal tears or detachments and am luckily under a specialist service for it. I have a routine NHS appointment for review every 12-18 months but also an emergency contact I can use at any time if I have any concern and get seen within 24 hours.
It does vary a lot though.

The problem with NHS follow up is generally lack of staff.

So for DH, he was having regular follow up and everything was good. Then the department fell apart with loads of consultants leaving. They couldn't offer enough appointments as they didn't have the staff.

4 monthly follow up turned into 8 months, an urgent surgery had a waiting list of 10 months...

And during one of the gaps he sustained irreversible damage.

So yes, with chronic disease you do get regular appointments but they may not be as often as you or your specialist would like, and escalating in an emergency can be tricky as well.

The problem with the NHS is that someone who has no links to the country can rock up, pay £4000 with a pre existing condition and have full access to the NHS.

It's crazy.

first look up on the nhs website your condition and the usual nhs treatment for it.
also check charities specialised in your condition for info on the various options.

treatment/observation plans can be very different if you come from a system like in usa or the big hubs in asia.

Private health insurance in UK isn't like in countries with less state covered care. It is good if you want to see a specialist, have an operation, physiotherapy for an injury, cancer treatment etc. It doesn't tend to cover chronic conditions, where you need regular check ups, physiotherapy, medication for years etc. Axa almost certainly won't cover this, even if preexisting conditions are covered under your policy. You should contact them to check, just be prepared that it is unlikely.

Sorry for the delay - lost track of notifications... the frequency of my check ups is dictated by how the condition is going or if I've changed medication recently or something like that. Sometimes it's 6 monthly and sometimes annually. I've never had an acute situation like you describe so can't speak from personal experience on that. Fwiw, I get the impression from mine and friends/family experience that the NHS still does pretty well at dealing with existing conditions that just require regular maintenance. Or even a new condition that is well understood and has a clear treatment pathway. It seems like it's more where something new crops up, especially if it's not exactly clear what the issue is, that you have to be more aggressive to get the system to do its job.