Hips and knees top private health insurance claims

insurance claims in dollar terms.

Colonoscopies were the next biggest category – and the most common – with $43.9m paid out over more than 20,500 claims.

Excising skin lesions and cataract surgery rounded out the top five, with Southern Cross paying out $37.5m and $28.2m respectively. In total, $47.4m was paid out for 1870 total knee replacements, and $47.3m for 2005 total hip replacements.

Though just 8 per cent of all claims – 240,000 procedures – were for elective surgery, they accounted for 70 per cent of overall claims costs. The three most expensive single operations performed in 2018 were all spinal fusions, with the most expensive ringing in at $211,978.

While less common, the procedures – which see two or more vertebrae fused together to correct spinal problems – were often the most expensive to fund due to their ‘‘complexity’’, Southern Cross said.

Last year, it paid out $25m for 539 spinal fusion procedures.

Southern Cross provides healthcare cover for about 870,000 New Zealanders – roughly 18 per cent of the population.

The insurer’s chief medical officer, Dr Stephen Child, said claims differed greatly depending on age and gender.

Southern Cross saw a lot of tooth extractions in those under 30 but as the age of its members increased, so too did the number of claims in the ‘‘top five’’.

While New Zealand had a ‘‘very good’’ public health system, it was ‘‘under increasing pressure’’, Child said.