Tell us your experience with Bupa

Do you have something to say about Bupa? Tell us your good experiences, bad experiences or otherwise and help inform the CHOICE Community.

Read our Bupa health insurance review

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Bupa and HBF cut health insurance benefits

A range of high-cost services will now be excluded from Bupa Budget policies.

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Which level of health insurance cover should you choose? We take you through the options after recent private health insurance changes:

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An honest question, since the government has chosen to ‘help us’ by standardising.

(eg Gold) in the mix of inclusions are oldies paying for services we could not physically ever need even by accident (eg IVF, pregnancy) because ‘government has helped us’ or are the individual funds adjusting premiums accordingly by age for each claim category? Is there evidence pro or con some or any funds are (or are allowed) to remove such cover while maintaining all the rest, for a lower premium?

Any data?

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It would make sense if there was some variation relevant to circumstance.

Eg “Gold for Seniors, Silver for Seniors” each more appropriately described.

Reading the Govt spiel, we feel like the old couple in the common TV advert when discussing saving by not paying for cover for pregnancy!

Any one looking at private cover post 60 years of age would be thinking seriously about, knee, joint and possibly hip issues. This steers you to “Gold-Gold-Gold for Australians” with larger bank balances?

Is it reality that the premiums for gold are the same for a 21year old and a 71year old, or are they different?

If they are different a little bit of transparency might help if providers published the relevant tables? I assume we paid more in our earlier years to not pay higher in old age, but feel we paid too much in youth only to pay even more with aging! Ripped off!!!

One other useful adjunct might be a table that lists the options for treatment if you do not have private cover for some of the categories. IE if I don’t have private cover for a new set of knees, assuming they are done in the public system - just how much will it cost and how long will I wait to be repurposed? I’ve seen similar data in a number of sources. :smiley::smiley:

The interesting challenge medically? If my partner elects to have another child at 70yrs, clearly Gold will cover pregnancy. You would also expect Gold then to cover the procedure to rejuvenate the necessary physiological attributes would you not? Otherwise why as @PhilT noted bother to provide the former for seniors? :upside_down_face:

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Is it yet another ‘improvement’ that just ends up costing most people more money?

My wife noticed ads for Members Own health insurance.

She thought that they were a health insurer and wanted to check out their policies so I looked at their website

I had to provide an email address and a phone number as well as my name to proceed and details of 3 obscure health funds which I had never heard of were then displayed

All 3 were around $100 a month less than our Bupa Top Hospital Cover With Co-payment And Classic Extras but 2 were for Bronze and 1 was for Basic.

The co-payments were $500 and $600 per visit.

We pay $50 a day for hospital up to a maximum of $250 a visit.

I have at least 1 day surgery procedure a year so all I pay is $50 a visit instead of $500 to $600. The total cost for the specialist, anaesthetist and the day surgery ranges from arounf $3,000 to $4,500 per visit and I pay no out-of- pocket costs.

My wife has been advised that she will need to have both knees replaced shortly so the last thing we need is some shonky policy which leaves us totally ripped off.

Far better the devil you know that charlatans you don’t.

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… so long as you know which is which. I’ve been with a ‘members own’ for years and never had a problem. I’ve checked a number of the commercial (not not-for-profit) including BUPA over the years, and recently, I won’t be changing any time soon …

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Some more advice on health insurance choices for those looking for the cheapest alternative:

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Simple do not use Bupa silver plus hospital cover did not cover any of my wife’s operation despite being in a hospital excess paid and not a service or type of operation etc. that is disclosed in the policy as ‘not covered’. P

Welcome to the Community @sucker

Could you provide more information? Normally the only things covered are those explicitly shown as being covered although some funds do ‘footnote’ certain exclusions.

As you unfortunately learned it is always advised to confirm cover or lack thereof prior to a procedure, rather than possibly getting an unexpected surprise afterwards.

Since this is specific to Bupa I am merging it into the Bupa topic, although another appropriate one may be

as well as the network providers that need to be used.

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Fundamentally be careful what you think 'hospital cover is. Bupa silver + does not cover any doctor/ surgeon operating charges while in hospital. All ‘out of pocket’ expenses Out of pocket tool