Healthcare system in Australia

canadianexpat96
Junior Member



Joined: 28 May 2006
Posts: 11
Location: Cambridge, ON

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 11:30 am

 

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Can someone describe the medical health care system in Australia and compare it to the Canadian one please?

Is it hard to get a family doctor? Do you have to wait for appointments very long? What does that system cover and what does it not cover?

My husband(chemical engineer in water treatment industry) and myself(real estate agent) are thinking of moving to Australia but we first want to inform ourselves about life in Australia.

Thanks

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comet555
Super Member



Joined: 28 Jun 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:13 pm

 

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The system in Australia is sort of like a two tier system. There's the public system that's called Medicare and it mostly covers your basics like doctors visits and hostpital care, etc.

http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/

I'll talk about the public system first.

When you go to see a doctor her there are doctors that bulk bill and ones that don't. A bulk billing doctor would be like visiting one in Canada. The doctor bills Medicare directly and you don't pay anything for the appointment. It can be difficult to find a bullk billing doctor though. One that doesn't bulk bill would charge you for the doctors visit (usually $50) and then you'd take the receipt to a Medicare office and get back $32. So in effect, it would cost you about $18 a visit if you had a doctor that didn't bulk bill. I personally don't mind that and only see the doctor a few times a year. Personally I think it stops people from going to the doctor for every little sniffle and keeps the wait time down.

I go to a doctor who doesn't bulk bill. I had no problem getting a doctor and don't mind paying the fee. I show up a few minutes early and am generally in his office when the appointment starts (no waiting for an hour!). Our doctor will bulk bill the children though so I've never had to pay for their visits. I've had no problems getting appointments though and generally if I'm calling a couple days in advance I can pretty much get the date and time I want. I had an appointment this morning and only called a day and a half ago. I probably could've gotten in yesterday if I had wanted to. This might be different with a bulk billing doctor though as they seem to have a bit more volume.

I just had a few blood tests today and that was billed directly to medicare, no charge to me. My husband did have an ultrasound a few months ago and he had to pay for that and then get reimbursed, so it probably ended up costing us about $70. Doctors visits and routine tests are not covered by private health. I've even had my eyes checked and that was covered by Medicare so I didn't pay anything.


Then there's the private system that you can choose to pay for with a cover like Medibank Private. Private health care would be things like hospital visits to a private hospital and things like psychiatry or chircopractors, glasses, dental, etc.

http://www.medibank.com.au/client/staticpages/r...home.aspx?js=true

The trick with the private health is you might want to get it if you're family income is too high. If you make over $100,000 as a family then the government will tax you if you don't have private health (something like 1.5% of your income). So if you fall into this category like we do then you'll probably just get private health care so you won't have to pay the tax. They have specific plans that cost about the same as the tax would so that's what most people do. We chose a plan that did hospital cover and a few extras like dental just in case. The plans do not cover perscriptions as far as I can tell. If there are ones that do it would be a lot more expensive.

The other problem with private health would be the gap fees. For example if you go into a private hospital and use your private cover then you might still be stuck with a big bill. You'd be charged for your stay and then Medicare would refund it's portion which would leave you with a bill left over because Medicare typically doesn't cover the full charges. Kind of like visiting the dentist in Canada. Where your employer health coverage doesn't quite cover the actual fees so you pay the difference.

So for this reason most people with private health care would choose to be treated in a public hospital and wouldn't even mention their private health cover. This way under the private system there shouldn't be a bill. My daughter had to stay overnight in the hospital a few months ago and we went the public hospital and had no problems. I found it all pretty similar to Canada and when we left we didn't pay anything.

The advantage though to having private health is that you get the option of using the private system if you like. This is particularly useful if you need an operation that might have a long waiting list in the public system or if you want to be treated by a specific doctor. So it does have it's benefits. Plus if you get one like we did it could have some dental cover and other extras like that.

Anyway, sorry for all the rambling. I remember wondering about all this before we moved and had a hard time finding what I was looking for, so I hope it's helped.

As a side note, where were you thinking of moving too? We're in Brisbane and my husband is a mining engineer. What kind of visa are you hoping to get? We did the 136 visa (called the 175 permanent visa now). Just curious if you've done a skills assessment yet or not. Engineers Australia is pretty quick and it should be pretty easy to get that part out of the way. If you have any questions about the visa just ask. We did it ourselves as it was pretty straight forward.

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comet555
Super Member



Joined: 28 Jun 2007
Posts: 161
Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:14 pm

 

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Oh yah, this is the best website I've found yet for information about immigration to Australia and the country in general:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=54

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