Paying for surgery

SURGERY is a service carried out by a surgeon for you. Like other services – cleaning, cooking or hairdressing – you need to come up with the payment at the time of the service.

By taking out Top-Cover private health insurance, your hospital costs can be covered including incidental costs like pain relief, dressings, binder, etc. The cost of your surgeon can be partially covered between Medicare and your health fund and your anaesthetist costs can also be covered.

The best advice we can give you is to get into Top Cover health insurance as soon as you are sure you want chest surgery. In Australia, this surgery is covered as long as you are in the health fund at least a year before claiming.

Sometimes people take out a personal loan to cover their surgery costs. While this is certainly an option, it can be risky one. If anything were to go wrong in surgery or your hospital stay turns out to be longer than expected, at over $500 a day for a hospital bed, your medical expenses can unexpectedly skyrocket.

See discussion at the end of this article by William for cost breakdowns with and without health insurance   91kb Top Surgery with Dr Megan Hassall in Sydney William, NSW

page updated 27 July 2011