HCF Health Insurance

Figuring out exactly how much your health insurance might be before signing up can feel like a guessing game. This is because how much your policy will cost depends on a range of things like your age, your state, your level of cover, how much you’re willing to pay as an excess, and many other factors.

When it comes to the cost of particular procedure, HCF have a cost indicator tool to help you budget. This handy tool has general cost info on hospital fees, possible out-of-pocket costs and how your preferred doctor or hospital can impact the final bill.

If you have a hospital and extras policy with HCF then you’ll be covered for emergency ambulance use by state government ambulance service providers. Some levels of cover will also include non-emergency ambulance trips if your doctor says you need monitoring during transport.

No matter who you’re insured with, there’ll always be waiting periods before you can start claiming on your hospital cover. Here’s how waiting periods work with HCF.

• Services like palliative care, hospital psychiatric, rehabilitation services etc have a two-month waiting period, even with a pre-existing condition.
• Pre-existing conditions and pregnancy and birth services have a 12-month waiting period.
• All other hospital services will have a two-month waiting period.
• Emergency ambulance trips (for those without pre-existing conditions) have a waiting period of 1 day.

Remember, if you’re switching insurers for your hospital cover and have already served waiting periods, they’ll still be honoured with HCF. But if you’ve upgraded your policy, you’ll need to serve waiting periods for any new services before you can claim.

Just received treatment for something covered by your extras policy? Now it’s time to claim, which can be easily done with HCF in five different ways.

• On the spot: Tap your HCF membership card at your provider’s HICAPS system, and the claim will be settled right then and there.
• Mobile app: Snap a pic of your receipt and send it to HCF through their app for processing.
• Online: Log in online, head to ‘claims’ and upload your receipt and the rest of the details.
• In person: Go to your local HCF branch with your membership cards and receipts.
• By mail: Fill out a claim form, attach your receipt, and post it to HCF, GPO BOX 4242, SYDNEY NSW 2001.

For hospital claims it’s a little different. At the hospital, you’ll fill out a claim form, which they’ll forward to HCF. If there are any out-of-pocket expenses, you’ll need to pay them and claim separately for bills from doctors or anaesthetists. If your doctor hasn’t already done it for you, you’ll need to send through a Medicare Benefit Statement, which HCF will use to finish your claim.

Paying your HCF premiums is easy with iSelect. Set up a direct debit and choose what works for you with fortnightly, monthly, or yearly instalments.

While excess isn’t the most popular word when it comes to health insurance, it can actually work in your favour by helping to keep your premiums down.

To help share the load (and keep health insurance affordable for everyone), an excess is your contribution to your treatment if you are admitted to hospital.

Opting for a higher excess can help keep your premiums lower but you’ll need to weigh up the likelihood of making a claim.

If you’re not likely to be in and out of the hospital often, then a higher excess probably makes sense. But if you have some planned treatments, going the opposite way and lowering your excess could mean more potential savings on your hospital bills across the year. It’s all about finding what works best for you.