ACT specialists requiring private hospital cover just to see you?

Can anyone recommend a health fund that will actually provide a family with some decent benefits?

We’re a healthy family of 2 adults 2 kids requiring basic hospital cover with some extras: general dental examinations twice a year, the odd physio or chiro visit, that sort of thing….

We’ve been with MBF for years and are paying around $300 per month, for very little benefits in return. I realise all funds have probably been paring back benefits paid out over time but we’re now considering our options.

Ma Bodine recently went to the GP for a referral to get a test done by a specialist, and then went to get the test done only to be told that the referral didn’t have the details outlining what the specialist actually needed to do. Back to the doctor’s for another referral. This time the doctor didn’t know what test he needed to order or how to complete the referral. Half an hour and multiple phone calls later Ma Bodine received a new referral. Back to the specialist. Referral still not correct. Forty-five minutes and multiple phone calls later the test was done. She will need to have a similar test in a couple of weeks. The doctor refused to provide both referrals at the same time, meaning another GP appointment (and fee) will be necessary. What a strange and time-and-money-wasting system we seem to have.

I think you may have got the Calvary Clinic Sessional Rooms. These are run by Calvary Clinic who hope to that maybe patients will then be admitted to Calvary Private hospital. They are the ones who call the shots. I imagine the specialists are busy trying to see all the patients they already have.

On another note, much private insurance does not cover all types of hospital admissions. Psych and some cardiology admissions are examples…….but they offer you free movie tickets and running shoes instead! Read the fine print.

Probably a private clinic. I have private health cover. I was diagnosed with a ruptured ACL on a Thurs morning through MRI, jagged a specialist that afternoon, and had my knee reconstructed the following Tuesday. All because I attend to my own health needs through appropriate cover

I see my GP and specialists in Sydney. At least the 3 hours is spent DRIVING, not WAITING.

Thanks for the replies. qbngeek, as far as I know the referral needs to be addressed to the specific doctor you are seeing, especially to get a medicare rebate. If that is not true then at least its what the doctors seem to expect. Anyway my doc hasn’t given me a copy of the referral, preferring to fax it to the specialist. I hear now that my referral has been faxed to another specialist who hopefully will accept my refferal, I just have to wait up to two weeks hoping for a phone call from the specialist to give me an appointment. YAY – no doubt I’ll hear nothing, end up chasing it up in about 2.5 weeks, back to the end of the queue again, perhaps I’ll see a specialist 12 months from now. I guess the doc doesn’t want me to see what they wrote in my referral thus I can’t pick the referral up and deal with it myself.

sepi, Canberra eye hospital are generally awful. They do lasik and cataracts and aren’t interested in much else. I was dumped by them and given nowhere else to go. Try to get in to the Canberra Hospital (ie the public hospital) eye clinic if possible, they don’t have the same attitudes and are much less quick to dump. I think you need to argue your case to get in, I had to find a good optometrist to get me in.

What would happen if you just made up a private insurance cover or borrowed a friend’s and changed a digit or two?

Sounds exactly like the experience I had recently. We are able to see the specialist under public health in TCH, it’s just a longer wait. I complained about the receptionist being very rude and snooty because we don’t have private health and not surprisingly I wasn’t the first one to complain about her.

I just had to get a new referral (decided not to go with original specialist). Called the GP, receptionist sent them a message, they prepared a new referral and I picked it up yesterday afternoon. No need for another consultation etc.

I’ve got private health insurance with a co-pay if you stay in hospital, but the co-pay is pretty small. I wouldn’t regard that as useless. I don’t bother with extras though, that just doesn’t justify the cost.

It is odd though, and the Sydney or southern highlands option is worth considering. I’ve used referrals for different practitioners too… I’ve asked when trying to book and never had a problem using a referral to another practitioner (in the same specialty, of course!).