Topping up Medicare Cover

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 28th Mar, '10, 16:30

We now have Medicare, which I understand we need to top up mainly to keep the tax man happy and also to get Ambulance Cover.

Is there anything else I need to look out for? Do you recommend hospital cover, for instance?

As Temp visa holders we've been with Medibank but my cover alone has been $300 a month and, when we called them about changing over, they informed us the rules changed and we haven't had the correct cover for I don't know how long. So, understandably not keen to stay with them if they're that dense.

Any recommendations for providers and level of cover, bearing in mind I won't ever be having a baby (and neither will Neo).

kittykat · Post by **kittykat** » 28th Mar, '10, 17:31

Health Cover - a thrilling topic! Seriously, there are so many views on what to get and what not to. I ended up covering Monster KK (he's a big boy now) and myself on a family deal under RT Health. I used iselect to compare policies. Link to site: http://www.iselect.com.au/. They have a neat little feature to look at avoiding tax/penalties.

I chose one which included Ambulance cover and when we first moved here had top cover but ended up paring back to basic hospital cover and full extras. Haven't really needed to use anything yet but dental check-ups etc. I'm sure I'll be using physio etc fairly soon as I start training for the Gold Coast half marathon.

Done a bit of googling and found the following on the new health insurance incentive: http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs ... tm&min=wms

Try iselect - they do a great comparison of funds and provide a pretty good service. Good luck.

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 28th Mar, '10, 17:35

Thanks KK - I've got iselect and privatehealth.gov.au open at the moment

Will delve a bit deeper.

HCF seems to get a lot of mentions on the expat site.

Fresh Mint · Post by **Fresh Mint** » 29th Mar, '10, 12:39

$300 a month?

WTF! That is insane.

Scrummy Mummy · Post by **Scrummy Mummy** » 29th Mar, '10, 13:09

Kooky wrote:I won't ever be having a baby.

THat's why I said, too.

Seriously, I'll be interested in what you decide. I was trying to explain all this to SD the other day, and it's SO complicated.

If you don't take out hospital cover now, will you have to pay age loading if you do it later?

kittykat · Post by **kittykat** » 29th Mar, '10, 17:11

Yep... If you haven't been paying cover since 2000 then you have to pay some sort of levy. Health insurance is very, very high here. Until the rejigging I received a 30% "rebate" and now get 10%. Guessing in 5 years time I'll get no rebate and have to pay even more.

Morrolan · Post by **Morrolan** » 29th Mar, '10, 18:41

we pay around $240 a month for the whole family.

Fuzz · Post by **Fuzz** » 29th Mar, '10, 19:45

Kook, iSelect is a good start, the other one is choice.com.au - Choice Magazine is the magazine that routinely tests services / products and recommend the best ones.

daffodil · Post by **daffodil** » 29th Mar, '10, 19:57

kittykat wrote:Yep... If you haven't been paying cover since 2000 then you have to pay some sort of levy. Health insurance is very, very high here. Until the rejigging I received a 30% "rebate" and now get 10%. Guessing in 5 years time I'll get no rebate and have to pay even more.

The whole thing is a bit of a joke.

When I left for Singapore in 2001, I cancelled my top cover health insurance (obviously) only to find out when I returned that my "expat" years counted against me and now I have a permanent additional levy to pay the insurer irrespective of the fact that I was out of the country and didn't need covreage in Australia! Goverment imposed of course.
Grrrr.

I've again suspended my health cover since heading to Manila, dread to think of the next penalty when I return.

baloo · Post by **baloo** » 29th Mar, '10, 21:30

daffodil wrote:The whole thing is a bit of a joke.

When I left for Singapore in 2001, I cancelled my top cover health insurance (obviously) only to find out when I returned that my "expat" years counted against me and now I have a permanent additional levy to pay the insurer irrespective of the fact that I was out of the country and didn't need covreage in Australia! Goverment imposed of course.
Grrrr.

I've again suspended my health cover since heading to Manila, dread to think of the next penalty when I return.

Unless it's changed since I have left, you can get around that. I provided my Australian insurer proof (by a letter from my international insurer stating period of cover) that I had private cover while I was out of the country so the levy didn't apply to me.

Lili Von Shtupp · Post by **Lili Von Shtupp** » 29th Mar, '10, 22:40

baloo wrote:
daffodil wrote:The whole thing is a bit of a joke.

When I left for Singapore in 2001, I cancelled my top cover health insurance (obviously) only to find out when I returned that my "expat" years counted against me and now I have a permanent additional levy to pay the insurer irrespective of the fact that I was out of the country and didn't need covreage in Australia! Goverment imposed of course.
Grrrr.

I've again suspended my health cover since heading to Manila, dread to think of the next penalty when I return.
Unless it's changed since I have left, you can get around that. I provided my Australian insurer proof (by a letter from my international insurer stating period of cover) that I had private cover while I was out of the country so the levy didn't apply to me.

This is an issue that I will have to deal with when the new health care plan kicks in and Americans are required by law to have health care coverage. I hope a letter from my Singapore insurer will suffice. Also, every time we travel, to the US or elsewhere, we have travel insurance. Still, I'm wary of dealing with US administrative knuckleheads who have an ounce of authority.

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 30th Mar, '10, 07:43

Minty, after previous calamities and huge bills, I had the top level of cover (Neo had the basic at $180ish). It just about paid for itself in appointments and meds and was there for emergencies too, although I paid even more myself as I have non-standard meds. We had to pay shitloads above the norm for being on a temporary visa and were required under its terms to have insurance, even though emergencies would be covered by a reciprocal arrangement with the NHS (e.g., I didn't pay for recent x-ray).

We've sacked Medibank, we're going with HCF and have been advised to get clearance certificates from the former to give to the latter to avoid the levy. If we can do that, top up cover for both of us is going to cost about $100 a month for Hospital only (incl the all-important ambulance cover).

Scrummy Mummy · Post by **Scrummy Mummy** » 30th Mar, '10, 11:04

When you say "top up" cover, is this the same as gap cover? Or do you just mean extra cover in case you want elective surgery. Did you look at optical and dental and decide it wasn't worth it?

Kooky · Post by **Kooky** » 30th Mar, '10, 11:21

It's basically cover to avoid the extra 1% tax you pay if you earn above a certain salary and don't have private health cover, but it includes some hospital cover. (Read up on Medicare Levy Surcharge thresholds.)

Yes to no to optical and dental. We both have lasered eyes, I do wear reading glasses but thought I'd take the hit on those as and when. Re. dental, the cover we've had has paid for check-ups but very little else and I had my latest cosmetic work done in Singapore anyway. 50% chance of being a bad decision I guess

Please don't ask me about bulk billing - I've yet to go to a doctor that does it. All seems very hit and miss to me, and one of the most frequent topics on that other site. Well apart from the price of lettuce.

Pinklepurr · Post by **Pinklepurr** » 30th Mar, '10, 11:36

baloo wrote:
daffodil wrote:The whole thing is a bit of a joke.

When I left for Singapore in 2001, I cancelled my top cover health insurance (obviously) only to find out when I returned that my "expat" years counted against me and now I have a permanent additional levy to pay the insurer irrespective of the fact that I was out of the country and didn't need covreage in Australia! Goverment imposed of course.
Grrrr.

I've again suspended my health cover since heading to Manila, dread to think of the next penalty when I return.
Unless it's changed since I have left, you can get around that. I provided my Australian insurer proof (by a letter from my international insurer stating period of cover) that I had private cover while I was out of the country so the levy didn't apply to me.

It hasn't changed. Initially when we left we suspended our cover, but because we were gone for so long we couldn't continue like that so we stopped about five years back, then when we came back we went back to our old insurer and have restarted our private cover with no levy at all, nor did we have to prove our overseas cover, we told them about it but didn't have any written proof of it.

Scrummy Mummy · Post by **Scrummy Mummy** » 30th Mar, '10, 11:46

Kooky wrote:It's basically cover to avoid the extra 1% tax you pay if you earn above a certain salary and don't have private health cover, but it includes some hospital cover. (Read up on Medicare Levy Surcharge thresholds.)

Yes to no to optical and dental. We both have lasered eyes, I do wear reading glasses but thought I'd take the hit on those as and when. Re. dental, the cover we've had has paid for check-ups but very little else and I had my latest cosmetic work done in Singapore anyway. 50% chance of being a bad decision I guess

Please don't ask me about bulk billing - I've yet to go to a doctor that does it. All seems very hit and miss to me, and one of the most frequent topics on that other site. Well apart from the price of lettuce.

Ah, Ok. Hopefully we'll need that!

A couple of surgeries near us do bulk billing, so we'll try and use those.

But I'm seriously re-thinking the move anyway now that I know about the lettuce shortage

ivietnamtravel · Post by **ivietnamtravel** » 22nd Apr, '10, 11:24

Sky ... what country are you referring to?

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