How to get more from your private health rebate and avoid medical rip offs

It pays to check your health fund extras policy every year with new research showing some payouts are never indexed to inflation. Use our health fund calculator to see how your deal compares.

If you took out an extras policy years ago, you could be getting severely ripped off by your health fund.

Fresh analysis has found people with older policies are receiving rebates that are more than 50 per cent lower than those offered to people who take out new policies.

A $60 rebate a fund offered the member for dental treatments when they first bought the policy may have never been indexed to inflation and may be frozen in time even though the premiums keep rising every year.

Comparison website Compare Club pitted the extras rebates on older policies against those available to people who updated their policies.

They found one old Medibank extras policy gave back $60 back for a root canal compared with $105 for customers on a newer policy with the same fund.

The old Medibank policy paid $48 for a tooth extraction while the new policy provides a rebate of $113.70.

An old Australian Unity policy Smart Combination (Silver Plus) (Combined Hospital + Extras policy) provided $350 for a dental procedure fitting a crown while its new Prime Extras policy pays out $804 for the same procedure.

Compare Club’s Head of Research Kate Browne said there was an average saving of $385 to be made on health insurance policies by adjusting your extras.

And she advised that people are usually better off with a policy where the rebate on extra is calculated as a percentage of the costs rather than as a fixed dollar amount.

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Nathan McCullum with his wife Eivyda and their 3-year-old son Dominykas. Picture: Jonathan Ng

‘I SAVED $170 A MONTH BY SWITCHING’

Nathan McCullum saved $170 a month after switching health insurers a few weeks ago.

The Sydney financial adviser and father of one had been a long time loyal member of health fund nib but switched to AIA insurance.

His main motivation was to save money, earn further discounts and the added benefits of a free Apple watch, discounted gym membership and the chance to earn discounts on his premiums by undertaking lifestyle improvements.

By downloading the AIA Vitality app the family was able to earn shopping rewards and make savings on domestic and international flights, he said.

“I had a gut feeling that I was comfortable with what I was saving, and also the other added benefits,” he said.

He and his wife Eivyda are planning another child and “the option to go private with the baby was important”.

“The fun part is we’re getting more benefits across different sort of physio or nutrition that we never had before.”

Originally published as How to get more from your private health rebate and avoid medical rip offs