Health Insurance Is treatment faster in a private hospital than going private in a public hospital?

Cronley asked this very important question in this thread:
Public Hospital Insurance only. Why pay for Private Hospital?

He is just interested in getting treated fast and doesn't care about the quality of the accommodation.

We know that, for elective surgery, going private is quicker than going public.

But is going private in a private hospital quicker than going private in a public hospital?

Are there significant delays for private treatment in the public hospitals?

Is there hard data anywhere to answer these questions, e.g.

• Waiting time for a hip operation on the public list
• Waiting time for a hip operation on the private list in a public hospital
  
• Waiting time for a hip operation in a private hospital

When one hears of elective operations being cancelled, is this all operations, private and public or just the public ones?

In theory a private patient in a public hospital should be seen quicker, however in practice I believe this is rarely the case. You could easily find yourself with a similar wait to the public waiting list.

Re speed of access for private patient in a public hospital, compared with a private hospital.
I put this question to customer service people in Laya & VHI
Laya person said they have a good number of clients with insurance plan for a public hospital only - she did not know what proportion of their clients it was. Her view on speed of access, was that a Public only plan would get you access as quick as a plan for private hospitals.

The VHI person had a different view - his view was that only a small percentage of their clients, had Public hospital only plans - most had Private hospital option. On speed of access, his view was that there were 3 speeds -
Speed 1 -Fastest access was with Private hospitals
Speed 2 - was access to public hospitals, as a private patient - but not as fast as speed 1, but faster than speed 3
Speed 3 - slowest access was having no insurance plan & stuck with the public waiting lists

It would be useful to hear from people who got treatment with Public only insurance plans & how they found speed of access.

Last year, I had hip replacement operation in Cappagh. I was insured with Laya in an Essential First plan, which was basically semi-private in Public Hospitals. I paid to see the consultant privately and was put onto the waiting list for the public hospital. I waited 10 months for the operation, which was the standard waiting time for all patients.
So, no difference whether I had private insurance or not, except that I got a private room!

Wouldn't there be vast differences in wait times across regions, across hospitals and across the types of day-case or surgical procedures. If you live in a part of Ireland with one main public hospital near you, the GP will refer you there privately first if there is a consultant who operates privately out of the public hospital.
Some public hospitals do certain types of operations because they have a specialist consultant there and the clinical speciality (eg. gynae or orthopaedic). But other regional hospitals simply 'don't do' that surgery so you have to go elsewhere, and that elsewhere might be a busy public hospital in Dublin where you have more population to compete with.
For example they don't do gynaecological operations in Portlaoise. So you either have to go privately to another county, or if you had a public-only plan, to a busy maternity hospital in Dublin where you are at the mercy of a larger population.

Eithneangela said:

Last year, I had hip replacement operation in Cappagh. I was insured with Laya in an Essential First plan, which was basically semi-private in Public Hospitals. I paid to see the consultant privately and was put onto the waiting list for the public hospital. I waited 10 months for the operation, which was the standard waiting time for all patients.
So, no difference whether I had private insurance or not, except that I got a private room!

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Hi Eithne

That is very interesting. Which would be more important to you? A shorter waiting time or a private room?

I checked with someone familiar with the situation. There are no stats available, but

only 20% of beds in public hospitals are designated private and these beds are used for

1. public patients who need to be isolated
   
2. private patients admitted through A&E
   
3. Public patients where there are no other beds available

Private hospitals don't have these problems.

Private hospitals operate at 80% capacity so the waiting lists are much shorter.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Hi Eithne

That is very interesting. Which would be more important to you? A shorter waiting time or a private room?

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Absolutely a shorter waiting time. I did not know when I went into the hospital for the op that I was going to end up in a private room, nor did I care. I just wanted the op done as soon as possible.

My dad has a really unusual situation...he has one condition...a clot...in one leg...and as he went through a and e went public. This diagnosed a clot in the other leg...private. two different hospitals. He much prefers the public experience!

Ladder22 said:

Brendan,

Thanks for setting out the various scenarios, they are very helpful.

If Mary pays privately to have a test and is discovered to have an urgent condition eg cancer, will she be dealt with publicly as quickly as if she had good health insurance?

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If by 'good' health insurance you mean cover in private hospitals, then I suspect that Mary will be treated with minimum delay. Otherwise she goes onto the public waiting list regardless of private consultation.

Our experience over the last 10yrs or so with kids and adults in Public and Private is that it make almost no difference. Resources are so stretched that its all based on priority. The only difference with private is that you pay more. You may get some situations where the private is better/faster, or the public. But it depends (IMO) on the specific case. We've got public appointments faster for something and private quicker for other things.

Is it possible to go to a consultant as a public patient and then do a surgery in a private hospital?

The reason I am asking this is that I have to get my tonsils out due to sleep apnoea. I got private insurance so I can go to a private hospital and avoid the wait list. However, since insurance doesn't cover out-of-hospital consultation fees I would like to go to the consultant through the public system. Given my condition I expect I will have to revisit the consultant few times and I assume consultant fees could end up being significant.

Hi Ama_Vic,

I've never heard of this type of situation ie public consultation/private surgery. Usually its the opposite way round, private consultation/public surgery. I would be inclined to think that a private consultation would be required, both before and after surgery in a private hospital, just for this procedure. You could then continue to see the consultant in the public system, for the sleep apnoea.

Snowyb

My dad has two blood clots on his legs. His right leg went in through public through a and e. He goes every tues to connolly now and is in and out in twenty.mins. His left leg goes every month to beaumont at 125 euro a time. For some reason they cannot be joined up as this is private.

Hi amtc,

Wow, that's a lot of consultants fees per year. Does he have good day to day cover on his plan?

Snowyb