Keep Calm And Check You Ambulance Cover

A trip to hospital in an ambulance can easily cost around $1000 depending on how far away you are from the nearest hospital.  

But what it could cost you all depends on which state you’re in and which health cover you have.

Some health funds include ambulance cover and some states cover it with a subscription so it’s important that you don’t assume you’re covered.

Here’s our guide on what you need to know to avoid a $1000 ambo bill!

Recently on the Daily Drive Radio Show we spoke to Tilly South, Health Insurance Policy and Campaigns Advisor with Choice.

With coverage varying from state-to-state, the onus is on you to check your coverage. Here’s a summary of what Tilly told us:

• Residents of Tasmania and Queensland have their ambulance trips covered by their state governments.
• Residents of NSW, the ACT and the Perth metro area (including Fremantle and Armadale) need health insurance if you want to be covered for ambulance.
  Residents of the Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria and rural WA can either get ambulance cover in their health insurance or through a state ambulance subscription.

If you get ambulance cover with your hospital or combined hospital and extras policies, you need to know you'll often only be covered for emergency ambulance. That can mean you're not covered for:

• ambulance officers treating you "at the scene" if you don't need to get taken to hospital
• non-emergency transfer to hospital 
• more than one trip per person or two per family per year
• evacuation by air or sea ambulance – i.e. only road ambulance is covered.

(NB: There is currently a special offer with HCF featuring up to $400 Cashback for FiftyUp Club members over 37 months*. CHOICE reports that: “All HCF extras, hospital and combined policies have emergency ambulance cover. Cover is capped for one service per person / two per policy a year.”)

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE $400 SPECIAL OFFER FOR MEMBERS

SUBSCRIPTIONS

CHOICE reports that these are:

• Only available in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Victoria and rural WA.
• Ambulance subscriptions usually don't have the kind of restrictions ambulance health cover does. 
• Extras insurance may offer a refund for an ambulance service subscription – depending on the policy you may be entitled to a 60% refund, for example.
• There's no government rebate on state ambulance subscriptions, but even without the rebate a subscription may still be better value than, say, ambulance-only health insurance policies.
• Pensioners and concession card-holders may get free ambulance cover.

Note: Some ambulance services give discounts for subscriptions of two or more years.

AMBULANCE-ONLY HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES

CHOICE reports:

• An ambulance-only health policy is cheaper than hospital insurance, but beware: these policies cover you purely for ambulance, there's no hospital or extras cover included, and they also don't help you avoid the Lifetime Health Cover loading or the Medicare Levy Surcharge (read this jargon buster for an explanation of these).
• Strict consumer information provisions for health insurance policies don't apply to ambulance-only policies, which makes it much harder for people to compare policies side-by-side. This is concerning, as these policies often have detailed coverage restrictions.
• On the plus side, unlike state ambulance subscriptions, health fund ambulance policies do attract the health insurance rebate – but even with the rebate, you may find an ambulance subscription service (if available in your state) is still cheaper or better value (see 'Ambulance subscription vs ambulance-only insurance' below).

Ambulance subscription vs ambulance-only insurance

If you live in Victoria, South Australia or the Northern Territory, you can get ambulance cover through either a state subscription or with private health cover. We've priced a subscription with your state ambulance service, and compared it with:

• basic cover for emergency ambulance or 'premium' ambulance from Bupa
• comprehensive' ambulance cover from Medibank.

All three private insurance policies provide less cover than a subscription with the state ambulance service:

• For singles in NT or singles, couples and families in SA, the Medibank policy including the full rebate is slightly cheaper but provides less cover than the ambulance subscription. The Bupa premium policy after the full rebate is more expensive for anyone in NT and SA and provides less cover.
• In Victoria, Medibank's and Bupa's premium-cover policies are a bad choice, as they're more expensive and provide less cover than the ambulance subscription. And again, that's even after the full rebate.

Here's a comparison for family ambulance cover in Victoria.

Note: * Premiums are after health insurance rebate.