Are you concerned about the much you spend on your hospital cover and wonder if you can save on health insurance? Below are seven tips that can help you figure out what you can do to save some money on your health cover.
1. Review Your Cover
Change is part of the circle of life. Over the years, people’s health care needs will change. Similarly, health funds will change the premiums and benefits they offer in their policies. Therefore, people should not join a health fund and fail to review their covers from time to time. If you have held the same health cover for several years, it may not be the best insurance policy for you and that’s why you should get a new health insurance quotation.
You should take another look at it as you assess your current needs so that you are confident your health cover suits your needs and requirements.
2. Switch Providers
Ask the average person in Australia to mention the health funds they know, and they probably will name 4 or 5 of them. Interestingly, they may also be a member of one of those they mention. Australia is home to dozens of health insurance providers with some of the most competitive covers and premiums in the world. As a client seeking the best policies, you should not be afraid to switch providers. The law grants you the right to jump ship and go to another insurer that offers better terms for the same level of cover. Moreover, you may not have to re-serve waiting period when at it; even if there are pre-existing conditions or illness.
3. Mix & Match
If you join a particular health fund, that does not mean that you are restricted to buying your health cover and other extras from the same provider. You can get two policies from different funds, and this gives you a more comprehensive range of beneficial options to choose from. With the guidance of a reputable and experience insurer, you can figure out with components are best from a particular fund to that you can get the ideal cover with affordable premiums, better rebates, and chances of savings.
4. Select An Excess
With an excess on your health care coverage, you agree to pay a percentage of the hospital bill. Subsequently, you get to enjoy lower premiums. The excesses can be anywhere between $100 and $1,000; and the higher the excess (or what you agree to pay), the lower the premiums. Therefore, you are bound to save some good money if you choose an excess, more so if you are healthy and unlikely to be hospitalized or make routine visits to the healthcare centers.
5. Review Your Extras
The extra cover (which is general treatment cover) is something that people opt for when taking their hospital insurance covers. The decision to go for this so that it can cater for optical, dentistry, and physiotherapy costs. What people should understand is there is a difference between health funds on the services they offer and what they will get back as rebates. As such, they need to ensure that the cover they purchase meets their needs and requirements while also being of competitive rates. You should weight the cost of your policy against what the services offered and the benefits you will enjoy.
For instance, you will find a policy that limits the benefits based on a person’s needs. In other cases, the provider may place family benefit limits on certain individual services. You may also come across policies that bundle some services together, like std testing and then set a benefit limit on that bundle. The disparity in what a consumer can get makes is hard from many of them to compare extras covers for them to pick what suits their needs and requirements.
6. Review Your Current Hospital Cover – Give It A Health Check
It is not that hard to find great health insurance covers out there; many of the health funds in Australia do have some competitive packages worth considering. Therefore, do not be afraid to shop around and switch providers. You will not have to deal with waiting periods when changing health funds if you currently covered for particular services on your hospital insurance policy.
In most cases, people will not change to another fund because they think or believe that they will have to deal with re-serving waiting periods. The law, luckily, states that you do not have to re-serve waiting periods for a service covered in your current fund. In short, that switch is protected by what’s known as continuity of cover. Nevertheless, you still need to review your new policy so that you are sure that has competitive premiums.
7. Save On Taxes
Depending on your income tier, you will have to meet the Medicare Levy Surcharge, which will be an extra tax that can be at 1%, 1.25% or 1.50%; and this will be on top of the standard Medicare Levy that is 1.5%. The Medicare Levy Surcharge is mandatory if you do not have eligible hospital cover and a yearly taxable income that is more than $88,000 if you are single, or $176,000 if you have a family. The figures for the family income are subject to changes as the threshold increases by $1,500 for each child after the first. That means that families will pay up to $1,680 pa or more on their Medicare Levy Surcharge liability and those who are single will pay $840.
This is a collaborative post.