Re: Private healthcare
Originally Posted by
Baz46
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One telephone call for an appointment resulted in seeing a consultant and an x-ray the next morning. The very next day I was in a private BUPA hospital and operated on. Brilliant hospital, very good care and most importantly out of that excruciating pain.
One downfall though that I found, as did my parents too, that premiums increase steeply as you get older. The very time you may need more from a private healthcare insurance it may become unaffordable. When retired your income is usually as good as fixed, no way of earning more either. Both myself and my parents found it impossible to continue due to the spiralling premiums.
Any quotes you get will probably not show this aspect of private health insurance but in my experience it's well worth asking about.
I went through much the same experience after having had cover from BUPA and then AXA as part of the job package.
It was only whilst sitting having a coffee in the Brompton that I was given some advice, by the surgeon sitting across from me, whilst I was waiting for my late wife to have an op there.
We were just chatting and I explained that i couldn't see the way forward to paying the ever increasing monthly subs for our cover, now that I had retired.
Right away he explained one of those"lightbulb" plans.
It went like this:-
1) Think like a business man looking for a deal. He explained that, when you are told that you need some treatment, you first ask your doctor to get an appointment, for you, with a private Surgeon.
At that appointment you discuss the proposed surgery and all of the other aspects of how & where it will be done. Then you leave with a price!
You should be ready to get other prices but this surgeon pointed out that a negotiated deal was always going to be way cheaper than the other options and a lot different from what Private companies would be being charged.
2) He advised setting up a special personal bank account and putting into it all of the money you would have been paying monthly to the Private Company.
If your monthly payment reached, say, 500 a month, that would mean you would have 12000 to negotiate with, after two years.
The bonus, here, is that you may never spend it all and it remains yours.
The negative is that it might be 3 or 4 years before you can pay for, for example cataract surgery.
However, your dental surgery should be attainable from this, and you might see opportunities in the choice of surgeons you can use.
Bottom line, and the line followed by lots of businessmen, manage your own package.