The Beagle Editor,
Just thought your readers might like to read this, it’s about the bill I got for my knee replacement.
This is the breakdown of the costs of my total knee replacement with private health insurance!
My surgery was done 13 months after injury because we had to top our health fund up to cover my surgery.
The total amount due was $7301.95
Medicare & health fund rebate $2030.65
Which means even with private cover my surgery cost us a total $5271.30!
My reason for sharing this is;
Two days before I went for the surgery I got a call from the public hospital wait list saying I could get the surgery on Medicare for free the next week & yes with the same surgeon.
I declined because my mindset was, well we have private cover, it’s silly not to use it.
I did my homework when it come to costs, our health fund covered 100% of the hospital but I wasn’t totally sure about the doctor's out of pocket costs which are billed at amounts chosen by the doctors themselves.
I called both doctors and was told I signed a form agreeing to the fees. But I hadn't, when they looked through my files there were no such forms. So 100% I was not informed of the extra doctor's fees.
Medicare has a scheduled fee & refund 75% of the Medicare fee, the health fund refunds the other 25% of the Medicare scheduled fee. But amounts billed by the doctors that go over the Medicare scheduled fee, the patient pays!
Not only did we pay $6864.00 in private health insurance that year, we also paid $5271.30 to my doctors.
So we paid, all up, $12135.30 when the next week it could have been free!
Please before you choose private cover for surgery checkout these costs.
Yes we have Medicare, we can get free medical treatment on a waiting list. So many wonder why those waiting lists are so huge, well believe me, this is one of many reasons.
I just want as many as possible to see this because I’d hate to think how many of us go through this.
I was so shocked when the bill came thru, plus they give a short time to pay, I was a week late because of my recovery paying and one of the bills went to a debit collector.
How many get caught out like this? It’s shameful
Georgie Norman
Above: In this case there was no fine print to read when it came to doctors fees.
