Health Insurance Comparison in Australia

You don’t have to re-serve any waiting periods that have already been served when switching from another health insurance fund. Your new health fund will recognize what you are already covered for and waive the waiting periods if moving to an equivalent level of coverage on your new private hospital or extras policy. In short, anything you are covered for now port across. You may have to serve waiting periods if moving to a higher level of cover but only for the items that were not previously covered.

Private health insurance can benefit you in multiple ways. A private hospital product can cover you in a private hospital for in-patient services with your choice of private doctor, and help you avoid public waiting lists for the procedure. Hospital cover also helps you avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge tax and accruing Lifetime Health Cover Loading (LHC). Extras cover can help cover the cost of health services generally not covered by Medicare like dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropractic plus more.

Health insurance comparison is very important when selecting your new health insurance policy. It allows you to compare hundreds of products in the market at once. When you compare with Fair Health Care Alliance, an experienced health insurance advisor will take you through an analysis of your health needs to help match you to a great product. You should compare health insurance with Fair Health Care Alliance because we focus on value, increasing payouts on claims, and health fund reputation. It’s not all about what’s cheaper!

The best health insurance fund in Australia is determined by who is asking the question. Health insurance companies come in all different shapes and sizes with an array of numerous policies that suit different health needs across hospital and extras. Features that can determine the best health insurance are policy cost, rebates for the extras you use most, fund reputation with hospitals, and doctors and ambulance cover.

Lifetime Health Cover Loading (LHC) is a penalty that increases the cost of your private hospital cover. The penalty is accrued by 2% for every year you are over the age of 30 and have not held a hospital cover policy while residing in Australia. LHC stops accruing when you take out a policy and can be entirely reset back to 0% by holding continuous hospital cover for 10 years. Other factors can influence what your LHC loading could be.

There are close to 40 private health insurance funds in Australia, and most of them operate on a Not-For-Profit business model. However, the market is dominated by For-Profit health funds such as Medibank and BUPA, with around 54% of insured Australians being with one of the two. Does a bigger health insurance company make them perform better? The data would suggest not.

Freedom of choice means being a member of a private health insurance fund that pays claims and rebates fairly and without discrimination at any health provider in Australia. This means you retain the right to decide which doctor, dentist, physiotherapist, or chiropractor you attend for health treatment without being penalised because your chosen specialist is not a preferred provider with your health fund. It should always be your choice – this is what Fair Health Care Alliance is all about.