When you come from a place where healthcare is either cheap or free, even a short stint in hospital (let alone multiple-week visits) can throw your entire year’s budget out the window. Most insurance policies require you to pay first and claim later, so there’s no avoiding the heart-stopping bill when it comes.
Medicare Doesn’t Cover You
Australia’s public healthcare system is not too bad. If you’re an Australian citizen or permanent resident, Medicare will cover you for most trips to the GP, many specialist appointments, and all your treatment in a public hospital, although you may have to wait for non-urgent treatment, depending on your condition and how busy the hospital is.
If you’re a legal resident, on holiday from New Zealand, or have moved from a country that has a reciprocal health care agreement with Australia, you may be able to access free care through Medicare too. The agreements don’t cover everything, though, so you still may end up with a hefty bill if you need surgery or significant specialist care. Bills can seriously skyrocket for complex pregnancies and neonatal care. Without private health insurance, they come straight to you.
Why Standard Travel Insurance Often Isn’t Enough
A lot of visitors make a costly mistake here. They come armed with a travel insurance policy, think they’re sussed, and only discover the truth when they face a bill.
Off-the-shelf travel insurance is all about short-term inconveniences, missed flights, stolen cellphones, sudden illnesses. It’s not designed to meet the requirements of Visa Condition 8501, a strict legal stipulation attached to many long-stay visas that demands sufficient health cover for your entire stay.
The Australian Government’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) is pretty precise about what it expects though. Full coverage with at least a $20 million Australian Dollars (AUD) limit for all in-patient hospital treatment, out-patient treatment, and medical repatriation, no excesses or co-pays allowed. Unfortunately, many plans offered by traditional travel insurance companies have unlimited sub-limits, or else simply don’t cover all the bases.
Some plans won’t cover pre-existing conditions even if you agree to pay more, and most domestic travel insurance plans use benefit limits that will see you well and truly overdrawn by week 3 if you’re a geriatric in need of a helicopter evacuation to Adelaide.
If you’re applying for a visitor visa as a long-term tourist, choosing a compliant visitor visa 600 health insurance policy isn’t optional. You’ve got to take out an acceptable policy, and send them either a print or electronic copy of the whole thing to prove you have.
How the System Actually Works Day to Day
One thing is to understand how compliance works. It’s a whole different issue to know how to navigate the system once you are already in it.
For non-emergency care, a respiratory infection, a sprain, an underlying health issue worsening, the last place you want to find yourself is in a hospital Emergency Department. The wait is excruciating and the costs associated with non-admitted emergency presentations can be quite high.
After Hours GPs and walk-in centres are tailored to precisely cover this gap. They cater for when your regular GP is closed, nights and weekends. Priority Primary Care Centres are aimed specifically at ailments that are not life-threatening but do require immediate medical attention. A bit of local knowledge here can do wonders. Using these services as intended makes it easier on your pocket and quicker for you to see someone.
Should you need to see a specialist, they will almost always require a referral from a GP. This is the intended pathway, GP first, specialist later. Co-op the system rather than sidestepping it, and you’ll find time and money are well saved in the process.
Pre-existing Conditions and What the Fine Print Actually Says
Perhaps more than any other, pre-existing condition clauses are the surprise element that sends jaws dropping. The assumption with these kind of products is that once you have a policy you’re in the clear, but that’s not how most health insurance policies work.
They contain a waiting period before you can claim for a known condition that you were treated for before the policy commenced. Depending on the product and the condition, the waiting period can be many months long, even all twelve. Certain conditions might be immediately excluded from cover, so check that specifically.
The chronic conditions we all think of straight away, diabetes, heart conditions, a known orthopedic issue etc., might have a three or six month waiting period, or in some cases not be covered in any year.
Medical expenses excluded in repatriation depend on your health insurance. Most policies exclude medical repatriation on the standard policy, but you can buy additional cover for it on many products for not very much more.
Getting Your Documentation Right
After settling on a compliant policy the red tape also needs to be in order. The Department of Home Affairs mandates a Letter of Compliance or Certificate of Insurance to show your level of cover matches the requirements of your visa.
This document should be obtainable from your insurer. If they don’t provide it or have never heard of such a piece of paper, that’s something you want to clear up before buying into the plan. No one wants to unpack a mess of fine print and exceptions with border control while trying to start their Aussie adventure.
Have both hard and digital copies at the ready once you arrive. Should your policy lapse or you find a provider with a better deal your paperwork will need to be updated.
