Health Insurance Using insurance in public ward

Chicci

Registered User
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16
Would appreciate any views on this. My son has been an inpatient in crumlin children's hospital for the past 2 days and is likely to be there another week. He is on a public ward ( I understand that private rooms are allocated on basis of need rather than means to pay for it which is fair enough). Today I was approached by admissions staff and asked to sign forms confirming they can bill my insurer (laya connect) in the region of €860 per night for the public bed. I signed the form because I felt under pressure to do so. Are there any views on whether or not I should have used my health insurance for this?
 
Hi Chicci, You have two options before you are admitted to any hospital (i) Go Public or (ii) Go Private. There is no combination of both when you make your decision. Now, this is where it gets interesting. You go Public you are treated in a Public ward by the hospital consultant. You go Private and still the probability is you will be treated in a Public ward, but by your consultant. Your Private consultant and Public consultant could be the same person (likely).

You're looking for views:- Mine is that Public and Private hospitals should be 100% separate like it is in the UK. You are probably wondering if you should be treated better as a Private patient in a Public ward; you're not. Your consultant and the hospital need to be paid and in your case Laya foots the bill.
 
Chicci,
If you don't have a medical card for your son, there is a nightly charge of 75 euro in a public hospital, including children. So if you didn't sign the form, you would've received a bill for 6 or 700, depending how many nights he stays. The max payable per year is 750, 75 X 10 nights. So, you did the right thing, even though you felt under pressure at the time.
If you have a medical card, you would have been in a position not to sign and explain accordingly.
Otherwise, you could just pay the 700 bill yourself.

Hope this clarifies the situation.
Snowyb
 
In this situation if you pay the bill yourself ie. 75 euro by the number of nights in hospital could you then claim it from your insurance provider rather than the hospital claiming maybe 1000 euro a night. Just a thought
 
In this situation if you pay the bill yourself ie. 75 euro by the number of nights in hospital could you then claim it from your insurance provider rather than the hospital claiming maybe 1000 euro a night. Just a thought
No!
 
Was in CUH in December with one of my kids for a day procedure involving a general anesthetic. Got asked at admission did I have health insurance and when I said I did I got sent off to fill in some forms. Insurer sent me a letter earlier this week saying they had settled the claim for around €700 and detailed what was paid for.

had we not paid it, then we would have been charged by the hospital the €75 or whatever the amount would have been for the procedure but I presume no more. We got no extra special treatment by "going private", to me it was a means for the HSE to recover costs which is fine by me.
 
Agree 100% that your health insurer will cover the statutory inpatient charge of €75 if you go public.

The key point is whether your child was admitted by a private consultant who is treating them privately in which case yes sign the form and the insurer is liable doe the private rate for a multi occupancy bed of €860 or so per night.

But if your child was admitted by a public consultant (e.g. Through A&E) and in a public ward the the treatment (other then the statutory inpatient charge) is covered by your taxes. You should in no way be pressured into signing the claim form unless this is the case as by doing so you are confirming that your child is being treated privately.

Ring your health insurer as they should explain and they can claw back the excess if you subsequently tell them something different.
 
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