Private insurance companies

[panda60]

Anyone else noticed that it is getting harder and harder to get them to pay up. I have just spent 20 mins arguing with mine over trying to authorise a visit to a rheumatologist because I have been so unwell over the past few months and have been taken off St Thomas' list. Suspicious little me suspects they've got wise to the fact that NHS is cutting back on monitoring and reviews as they told me that they will pay for this visit but not a follow up, which I have never been told before.

I wonder now if people like me with chronic conditions are now going to be caught in the middle with NHS cutbacks and private insurance refusing to pay up. It is very dispiriting.

[overnighthearingloss]

Initially I was seen by a consultant under a private health plan. But I think it is common practice for them to wriggle out after a condition is deemed chronic.

Most policies have a cut off limit. Once a condition is deemed chronic the needs increase and so the insurance policy soon becomes invalid as the payout limit is reached.

Read the small print.

The NHS used to be a safety net. But even that is being eroded.

Lucky that the general public voted for all of this, eh! Otherwise people would have a right to feel aggrieved.

[Hidden in reply to overnighthearingloss]

Absolutely agree - the other worrying point is that all the new private healthcare companies who are taking over parts of the NHS and GP practices (CCGs) are also not interested in treating long-term conditions - not enough money in that, so that's also pushed back onto the NHS which is struggling enough already!

Why anyone who supports the NHS would vote Tory is beyond me (Thatcher started dismantling it in the 1980s and it doesn't fit into their view of capitalism - too much of a socialist concept), but you'd have thought better of the LibDems. Thank god for the House of Lords - otherwise this government would have pushed through the bill which made it MANDATORY for hospitals to subcontract out areas of healthcare! I wonder which MPs were sitting on the boards of the private healthcare companies ... socialinvestigations.blogsp...

Thanks also to 38 degrees constantly putting pressure on Jeremy Hunt so that he couldn't cap the number of times a person can visit their GP. We have to be vigilant and make our voices heard if possible - I've heard this government described as the NHS vandals and I think that says it all ....

[panda60]

I'm with BUPA also under my husband's subsidised company scheme. Over the past couple of years it has got harder and harder to get anything out of them. I really object too that you have to give symptoms of your illness to a total stranger over the phone. They stopped paying out for check ups for the Hughes 10 yrs ago but I have managed to get a couple of appointments by saying my symptoms are new or have got worse.

Hubby is retiring soon so we will be abandoning BUPA as the quote for the annual premium is what we'd be paying on a mortgage, so we will pay ourselves as need be. I have seen this rheumatologist before so may ask if I can go on his NHS list.

[panda60]

Love your last sentence!!!