Private hospital treatment is gone for now - so should you still pay for your cover? YOUR BILL
Emergency offers chance to switch temporarily to cheaper policy while corporate benef its remain unavailable
Should you keep paying for health insurance now that private hospitals – and effectively private medicine – has been put on hold? And should – and more importantly will – health insurers cut prices now that much of the benefit of the cover they sell has been removed?
These are previously undreamt of – never mind unasked – questions that arose this week after Irish private hospitals were effectively nationalised to cater for the expected surge in coronavirus patients.
The Irish health system has been turned upside down by the Covid-19 pandemic. And by extension, so has private health insurance.
The main point of health cover is that the combined premiums of everyone in the system pays for private hospitals and resources where you can go if you don’t want – or can’t afford – to wait for public healthcare.
But this week the Government entered into a deal with private hospitals to effectively take them over to help cope with Covid-19 cases. This effectively means ‘private treatment’will be effectively suspended for the duration of the crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and need to scale back or cancel their insurance cover to save money.
So what should you do?
Firstly, there may, just may be, some financial concessions from insurers on the way to help make up for the fact that the main benefit of health insurance – i.e. private healthcare – has been suspended, according to health insurance consultant Dermot Goode, of Totalhealthcover.ie.
Insurers have to pay the Government a levy of around €450 for every member, which is part of your policy cost. Any suspension or reduction in this levy would surely have to be passed onto customers or the Government and the insurers would be left with egg on their faces, and a lot of angry customers, respectively.
“We have been advised that once the insurers have absolute clarity on the specifics of the deal and the impact on claims, only then will they be able to confirm what concessions (if any) will be forthcoming,” said Mr Goode, early this week.
Any reduction would be very welcome to help hundreds of thousands of people deal with a cash crisis caused by redundancy, wage cuts or loss of income.
But it is far from guaranteed and in the past, the Government has tended to use health insurance as a form of stealth tax, loading extra costs onto insurers that inevitably are passed onto customers.
Mr Goode advised people not to panic and cancel their health cover if they are short of cash. If you do so, it could mean financial penalties or serving long waiting periods for pre-existing conditions.
If you don’t qualify for a medical card, you could also end up with a hefty bill if hospitalised in a public hospital.
‘If any member is worried about the affordability of their cover, they should engage with their broker or their insurer to discuss this further. There may be short-term options available to them to reduce their costs but still remain insured.’
To start with here are some tips: ▪Split cover – you don’t have have everyone in the family on the same plan. In fact, this is a daft thing to do as kids and middle-aged people have very different health needs.
▪ Go for a plan with a higher excess even if in the short term.
▪ Scale down your cover
If you haven’t reviewed your cover in a while, you could even get a better deal for less money.
Laya and Irish Life openly allow customers to switch plans mid-contract. The VHI officially doesn’t allow it but this line may not hold in the current crisis.
Mr Goode encouraged financially troubled customers who want to switch to a cheaper plan to engage with the VHI. ‘They will not be found wanting,’ he asserted.
So which plan should you trade down to? Mr Goode provided us with a list of recommended options in different price ranges from various insurers (see table).
The cheapest plans are ‘not ideal’, he said. They cost around €500 but offer little except public hospital cover and the continuance of your health insurance record to avoid age-related penalties and waiting periods. Most don’t even give you the video and phone GP and nurse line services that come into their own in the current lockdown.
But if you are absolutely stuck, they might be a godsend. You can always switch back to a better plan later. Next on our list are the midrange plans costing €900-€1000 that have better benefits such as virtual GP visits online. But they offer little in the way of money back for routine expenses, like actual GP visits, A&E charges and physio etc.
What they do offer is public and private cover including semi private rooms and some other benefits too. For another €300 you can get the best value plans out there. These are corporate plans aimed at the companies that give health insurers big business. They are not cheap – costing around €1,300 – but they provide similar benefits to many much more expensive plans.
The top trio of plans recommended by Totalhealthcover.ie – Simply Connect, 4D Health 2 and Company Plan 1.3 – not only provide provide public and private care but also quite generous cover for many forms of healthrelated expenses, for example, gyms, Fitbit devices, physiotherapy, new glasses etc etc.
They all offer different benefits, which you can check out and compare on www.hia.ie.
As these expenses are often discretionary, i.e. getting a new pair of glasses, you could claim back €1,000 a year or even more, in theory, if you play your cards right.
Normally, these plans would be highly recommended and have saved readers thousands, especially many people who are still stuck on
what used to be the VHI’s jaded old staple – Plan B Options. This is now called Health Plus Extra, but it costs nearly twice as much as the alternatives listed here with few, if any, extra benefits and in some ways worse cover.
At present there is not much chance of using those extra corporate plan benefits, but the lockdown won’t last forever, and those optical and dental appointments will take place, so you shouldn’t lose out over the course of a year.
Anyway, here’s what you should do about health insurance in this crisis:
▪ If you are desperate for cash, contact your insurer and ask to switch to the cheapest plan
▪ If you are on a high-range plan, go for a mid-range plan, at least until the lockdown is over, if you can afford it.
▪ When the current lockdown is finally over, upgrade to one of the recommended corporate plans
▪ If you are on a pricier plan and can afford to take a longterm view, look at our recommended corporate plans anyway.
But before you do anything, talk to your insurer or broker and check out www.hia.ie. And yes, your insurer will give you honest advice if you ask the right questions.
They are now monitored by the Central Bank and must do what is best for you. Just be careful about how you phrase your questions.
For example, don’t just say, can you recommend a plan? Say: Can you recommend a cheaper plan with similar benefits to the one I am on – or to one of the corporate plans we mentioned?
Another concern for those with health insurance is when and if private medical appointments will go ahead now that the private hospitals have been commandeered to look after public patients.
People who have upcoming private appointments scheduled, will need to contact their consultant to see if these are going ahead or if they need to be deferred.
‘At this point, it is still unclear if private outpatient appointments will still go ahead during this period.
‘We understand that some private MRI scan centres may still function as normal, but this is yet to be clarified,’ said Mr Goode.