Health Insurance Is private insurance important for the elderly?

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Buffet

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Hi,
I am looking for some advice on behalf of an elderly lady regrading private health insurance.

Her husband was in a nursing home and has recently died. He was adamant about having a good health plan in place for both of them.
Since his death, the policy has lapsed as it was in his name. VHI were informed of the death, and did reach out to the lady, etc, but the matter wasn't resolved.

The lady is fairly adamant that she doesn't want any private health care.
She is of the opinion that she will get just as good care in the public system if she ends up in hospital.
She says that she is too elderly and frail to undergo any major surgeries or treatments.

The total cost of the private consultations they have had in recent years did not exceed the policy excess thresholds, and therefore had to be paid for in full.
Sadly for her, these consultations/examinations haven't resolved her biggest life impacting issues (extreme dizziness, lethargy, tinnitus, deafness), and there seems to be little hope of the same based on the results given. Therefore, there was no obvious benefit to having the policy in place.

She has articulated that she feels like she is dying, and sees no point in spending money on the health insurance.

She is almost 90 years old. She lives on her own and is unable to make use of technology for social contact.
Between that and the loss of her husband (and not being allowed to see him for the preceding months), her physical & mental health has declined hugely, and I do worry about her greatly.

I respect her opinion, but don't want her to lose out on the best care available if/when she needs it.
While not loaded with money, she has enough to pay for the health insurance.

Are there other facts that she should be considering?
Are there other policies she should be moving to?

The current policy is HealthPlus Access from VHI.


Thanks in advance.
 
I suppose she kind of has a point! At this stage if she is not likely to be pursuing consultations for the issues she has then the thing most likely to land her in hospital is something sudden like a fall for which more than likely an ambulance will be called and that won't take you to a private hospital anyway so she will end up in the public system.

She will get perfectly good care in a public hospital but will be in a ward of more people than a private hospital usually which may or may not matter.

My father had health insurance all his life yet in his final couple of years he ended up in the public hospital more than the private as he would require an ambulance. In the end he spent his final illness in a public hospital, I could not fault the care he got, it was actually better than the previous stay in the private hospital but the only disadvantage was being in a large ward when he would have been semi private room in private hospital. However when he got much sicker he actually was moved to a private room in the public hospital.

So while my father wished to keep his private health cover it was of no practical use to him in his final years as like your friend he was not going to be going for any surgeries etc at his age and state of health, anything that was going to be needed would have been an emergency and dealt with perfectly well in public system.

Personally if it was me I'd keep paying if I could afford it as if you are not very very sick it is nicer to have a bit more privacy than a big ward but I do see where she is coming from!
 
She seems to have made it clear she doesn't want the insurance so I guess her decision has to be respected.

If policy has lapsed by more than 13 weeks, she won't be covered for any preexisting conditions for 5 years so at her age it really would be pointless.
 
Thank you both for your replies.
It is about 10 weeks since the last payment, so if she had changed her mind I think she could still act - but thank you for pointing this out.

Similar to your father's situation Monbretia, the husband was treated in the public system for the last week of his life, and died behind a curtain in a ward surrounded by other patients. I don't know if this came about due to Covid times - perhaps because the hospital was locked down due to Covid restrictions, there was no attempt to move him to somewhere private when he took a turn for the worse.
It happened quite suddenly & unexpectedly at the end anyway, sadly for him and the family.

I will revisit with her, just to be sure she still feels this way.
Is it worth asking her to reach out to her GP for advice?
Perhaps GPs are too busy in the current times to be able to support this type of query.
 
I'm not sure GPs are that busy at all, I know my own will only see a patient if a phone consultation can't be done so I'm sure if she contacts the surgery the GP will talk to her over the phone and bill a consultation to hse assuming patient has a medical card.
 
I would have thought they were very busy with phone appointments which of course admittedly could be every bit as long as an actual consultation so maybe that would do it. The bulk of those Covid appointments would be by phone too I imagine. I have only tried to get an appointment once since March a couple of weeks ago and got a call back within few of hours as it was deemed phone consultation would do me.
 
The poor woman must be so devastated after losing her husband. I understand her thinking. My mother had health insurance and didn't make much use out of it. She'd have seen the odd consultant over the years but still had to pay the full fee anyway. She ended up on a public ward in the days preceding her death, only being moved to a private room once another patient died and then mum was next in line - to die, not necessarily to get a private room! Private rooms wouldn't be easily available in any hospital I'd imagine. Dad didn't have private health care. He had his appendix out age 79, was in hospital on another occasion and was treated quickly and as fairly as any patient with insurance. He didn't have any ongoing issues so wouldn't have been seeing consultants for anything. I would be in agreement with this lady, that health insurance would be a waste of her money.
 
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