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| Hicaps is a new system of dealing with health insurance claims electronically and immediately when you settle your account. Basically your health insurance fund gives you a "credit card" with a magnetic strip. When you settle your account, we swipe your card through our machine and a couple of minutes later there is a print out of your account and we can tell you how much the gap is going to be. Most people then pull out either a credit card or a key card and then this is swiped through the same terminal and that is the account finalized! The system works very well when it works, and is extremely popular with our clients but being a computer it doesn't work all the time. |
| Most of the major health funds are now online through Hicaps, but there are some notable exceptions such as Westfund. The most generous Health Fund at present is Medibank for it's fully covered members. To this extent we are a Medibank preferred provider which means that Medibank members get a no gap rebate for almost every service. However don't be confused on this score; if you are in one of their older schemes, you may not be eligible. It is only when we swipe your card and present your account that we discover the true story. As we are also a preferred providers for MBF,they also give full rebates with no gap cover, but only for preventive services. Most of the other Health Funds seem to give a rebate of 60%- 80% depending on what treatment is carried out. |
| The truth is that we have no idea how much the rebate will be until after we present the account electronically, which can only be done after the treatment has been provided. This is because there are about 100 health funds in Australia and each one has several steams of health cover which have been changed and changed and then changed again. Worse still what was say "super- cover" was upgraded to "deluxe- cover" which was upgraded to "super- deluxe cover" which was upgraded to super-deluxe -super cover' and so on until nobody knows where they stand! Sorry about that, but you will have to check with your own health insurance to discover just what cover you have and just what the local rules of your own fund are in regard to waiting periods or whatever. |
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