Key Post Is there a good policy for maternity cover?

As this is a very old thread, any volunteers to rewrite and update it. The tow main contributors haven't visited Askaboutmoney in a long time.

Brendan

A good summary of the differences between public, semi-private and private maternity care from rollercoaster.ie: Public or private?

Holles Street costs January 2014: [broken link removed]
Private room: €1,000 per night
Private Consultant's fee: €3,500 to €5,500 (Seems to give you a choice of top consultants)

Holles Street:
Semi-private room: €813 per night
Professional fee: €1,200

Maternity cover (thanks to huskerdu for this summary)
Here is a summary of what PHI covers for Maternity in Ireland. If my figures are incorrect or out-of-date, please let me know.

If you decide to see a consultant privately for ante-natal care, the cost will be approx €2,500 to €3,500. PHI does not cover this, but some plans pay a contribution. VHI/Aviva/Quinn pay between €200-€500 towards this, depending on the plan. €300 seems to be an average for a lot of plans.

PHI pays for the consultant fee for the birth, the anaestitist fee if you have an epidural or section, blood tests and 3 nights in a private ward, in a public hospital. If you have any medical complications during the pregnancy or birth that necessitates a longer hospital stay, this is covered. In a normal birth with no medical complications, only 3 nights are covered.


If you attend a private hospital, PHI will pay a total of between €2275/€4000 depending on the plan. My understanding is that the average bill for 3 nights in a private Maternity hospital is in excess of this.
If you are a private patient, you must pay for all ultrasound scans. This may be fully or partially covered by PHI, depending on the plan.

There is a 52 week waiting period for maternity cover.

Updated January 2015 by Brendan

Laya has produced this very useful summary of maternity cover I can't find a similar summary on any of the other websites.

All citizens of Ireland who are normally resident in the state can have free maternity care - this includes antenatal treatments, labour & childbirth care, the hospital accommodation and also the post-natal check up.

Most women do not need to visit the hospital for all of their ante-natal care. Combined care can be chosen with your GP.

Your GP should be able to help you or contact the antenatal clinics in the maternity hospitals for help. You will usually have to register initially.

Public patients are not guaranteed to see the same doctor on each visit to the clinic.

Roll forward to when the baby is born, the mother and baby will be transferred to a public ward which can hold between 10 and 16 beds.

Sitting here with our third baby wriggling in my arms, I can tell you we have never pad a penny for maternity care.

If you are only considering taking out private health insurance to cover maternity care I would suggest you reconsider. If you have a very strong reason to go private for maternity care fair enough, but the public system is excellant and depending on where you are based there are a number of options.

You might consider contacting your local maternity hospital to see what options are available and the relevant costs. For ourselves I went public with child number 1 with combined care with my GP, so saw him every second visit. On number 2 and 3 I attended the Dominos midwives clinic and my gp. This allowed me to discharge from hospital the same day as delivery and have five days of followup at home with the midwives. You can check out both www.magicmum.com and www.rollercoaster.ie for multiple discussions on private vs public

All maternity care is free in Ireland.

I have recent experience.

Combined care pre-natal = alternating visits to GP and OPD in hosp.

We ended up in 6-bed wards with maybe 3-4 in ward for 4-5 nights.


We have health ins but didn't use it.

Most of my friends have health ins, but again didn't use it.

Even with health ins, bill is 3k+ I believe.

I had private health insurance on both pregnancies and its a complete waste of money. Even with the cover ( i went semi private) you are talking a shortfall of approx €1000. There is absolutely no difference in the level of care you get, the only difference is the ward, but a semi private ward is pretty much the same as a public ward. You pay absolutely nothing if you go public. If I ever get pregnant again I definitely won't be going privately.

First thing to remember about private insurance for maternity, that if you go to a public hospital there is no guarantee you will get a private/semi private room. There are even reports of people (TV3 presenter whose name escapes me) with private maternity insurance ending up on a trolley in the corridor in one of the Dublin hospitals

We've had 2 kids, both born in the public hospital in Kilkenny. For the most part, in both cases I can't fault the care. Indeed, on the first one, the consultant who had been on during the day when labour started, came back in that night to manage the delivery which had got complicated, even though another consultant was there as well. In terms of wards, for the most part they have 4/6 bed wards there which were not always full and were quite strict on visitors, so it was peaceful enough.

I have really good private health insurance but chose to go public. I could not afford the cost of going private (even with my health insurance) and semi private in my opinion was a waste of money (I was not concerned with the amount of beds in the ward nor the waiting time at my appointments). The care I received was absolutely excellent. I did not have a straight forward pregnancy and had to have many extra appointments and was also attending St. James's from halfway through the pregnancy. It did not cost me a penny and I feel I couldn't possibly have been treated any better than I was.

Those of you who have private health insurance and who have gone through the public system without paying might have assumed that your private health insurance was picking up the tab. Not necessarily. Those of you who have no health insurance and have given birth before will know that maternity care is free in this country, if the mums-to-be go through the public system. However if the Mum chooses to go private in a public hospital, the bill can easily top €5,000. So what is the difference and is it worth it?

All women are entitled to free maternity care in the State, which includes cover for antenatal visits, labour & delivery costs and postnatal care, regardless of whether you have health insurance or not. Public patients attend their chosen hospital's antenatal clinic (or a community-based clinic), and may or may not see the same doctor on each visit. There is also a perception that waiting times are longer in public clinics and there is much anecdotal evidence of this from various surveys as well as mother's postings on various online sites where new mothers discuss such issues.
Many couples therefore choose to go private within the public maternity hospitals. This means that they will choose to have a private consultant obstetrician available to them for the term of their pregnancy. People who opt for private care cite a number of reasons. The first is continuity of care. Private patients see the same consultant obstetrician at each antenatal appointment. They will attend the delivery of your baby if possible, but this is not guaranteed. If they happen to be unavailable you will have another consultant to stand in for them. The fees charged by consultant obstetricians vary even within hospitals. For instance, private consultancy fees in the Rotunda vary from €3,000 to €4,500 while the National Maternity Hospital in Holles street and the Coombe average at approximately €4,000. Private patients are essentially paying to ensure that they are going to be seen by a more experienced person than a standard hospital registrar and have availability to their consultant on a much more frequent basis.

Alternatively, you can go down the semi-private route, which usually costs in the region of €1,200 once you add in the extras such as blood tests and scans. However semi-private patients do not usually enjoy the same continuity of care. Again different hospitals offer different packages but generally you will attend a clinic run by a consultant and senior members of his team. Ideally you may be dealt with by the same person each time but this is not always possible. Someone from your appointed team should be available for your delivery.

Apart from private consultants the other issue is accommodation which is unrelated to the cost of consultants. With public hospitals, those with health insurance will usually be fully covered for up to three nights in a public hospital and may be entitled to a semi private or a private room, rather than a public ward, however there is no guarantee of a private room as there is a high demand for beds and private rooms may not always be available.


Aviva's Level 2 Family Health Plan offers the highest grant in aid of €4,500 towards private maternity of any plan on the market and arguably has the most comprehensive ancillary maternity benefits available also. Health insurers may apply a waiting period of up to a year for maternity benefits if you are a new customer or if you are upgrading your maternity cover.

So if you're planning in advance and this is something that would interest you, you should act quickly.

Patrick

Its great to have all this info to hand, cos it is such a confusing minefield.
Can I just ask what happens if you choose to go private and it turns into a high risk pregnancy and involves hospitalisation for a few days/wks before the birth?
Will vhi etc pay for extra days in hospital or will the bill have to be paid by patient as they chose not to go public?
thanks

bedazzled said:

Its great to have all this info to hand, cos it is such a confusing minefield.
Can I just ask what happens if you choose to go private and it turns into a high risk pregnancy and involves hospitalisation for a few days/wks before the birth?
Will vhi etc pay for extra days in hospital or will the bill have to be paid by patient as they chose not to go public?
thanks

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If you are hospitalised with a medical condition during pregnancy, VHI will pay for the hospital visit, but there are limitations and you should check these with VHI.

bedazzled said:

Its great to have all this info to hand, cos it is such a confusing minefield.
Can I just ask what happens if you choose to go private and it turns into a high risk pregnancy and involves hospitalisation for a few days/wks before the birth?
Will vhi etc pay for extra days in hospital or will the bill have to be paid by patient as they chose not to go public?
thanks

Click to expand...

It will be treated in the same way as illness. If it is medically necessary to be admitted as an inpatient, the insurer will cover the cost as per your plan - assuming you have served relevant waiitng periods etc.

Patrick

As this was written four years ago, has anyone any more recent experience or update on figures?

Maternity care in public hospitals is very good in Ireland. There is no medical need for it to be covered by PHI.

But some policies will get you a private hospital. Are there many private maternity hospitals? I know a few women who went to Mount Carmel, but that is closed now.

Brendan

NovaFlare77 said:

If you are a private patient, you must pay for all ultrasound scans. This may be fully or partially covered by PHI, depending on the plan.

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Does this mean that if you are public patient, you do not have to pay? So if you are a private patient and your insurance does not cover them, then insurance is a disadvantage.

Brendan

The HIA comparison website, doesn't seem to provide any information on whether a private room is covered. Maybe a maternity case is covered like an ordinary hospital admission. If you have cover for a private room, you get a private room.

Why does it say "Public Hospital Costs up to 3 nights"? Surely that is paid for anyway by the state?

All public maternity care is free at point of care, simple as that. No bills.
Not even the 75 pn that applies to other hosp care.

Paid for by taxpayer.

Brendan Burgess said:

The HIA comparison website, doesn't seem to provide any information on whether a private room is covered. Maybe a maternity case is covered like an ordinary hospital admission. If you have cover for a private room, you get a private room.

Why does it say "Public Hospital Costs up to 3 nights"? Surely that is paid for anyway by the state?

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Brendan,
Its not clear, but they mean for a private or semi-private room in a public hospital.
If you are a private or semi-private patient, you will be charged for the room.