I would be interested to see how you get on with this handtight as I had an issue with this myself a year ago and it was not very satisfactory at all. My one year old had to have an operation at a children's hospital in Dublin and I was most anxious to make sure it was covered under my health insurance policy, I think it was Laya. I rang them and they said I would need a code, so I rang the consultants secretary who seemed to think it was very unorthodox and said I didn't need it. Rang insurer back who assured me it was common practice to give codes to ensure that procedure was covered, rang back secretary who told me to ring administration, who told me to ring someone else, who told me they don't give out the codes until the procedure is done. Rang back Laya, who said they most definitely needed the code and that it was most unorthodox that I wasn't being given it, to confirm if he was covered for the procedure or not. Eventually, Laya said, that based on my level of cover, they could only assume that it would be covered but that I could not take it as a given until they had the code. My son needed the op, so I just had to hope that it would be covered (it was). It was incredibly frustrating. Incidentally, it was a fairly routine operation and one that is quite common so its not like it was out of the ordinary.