Weblog

Wednesday May 10, 2006

The lack of privacy with health insurance

Today I visited a health care provider that wasn't the original doctor I visited some time ago. And while discussing paying for things, they were able to tell me exactly how much money I had left in the "deductible" column. It wasn't until I left that this sank home but why are they entitled to know that? How is the business of any particular health care provider to know what I've spent (or haven't spent) on health care in any given year? All of a sudden I feel violated, as if my health (or lack thereof) is somehow public knowledge.

To compare this with Australia, health care providers have no knowledge about whether you have health insurance and if you do, they have no access to that knowledge. If I want a refund for health care provided, it is up to me to file the appropriate paperwork with the health insurance people. Or, in more modern facilities, I give them a card to swipe (much like an ATM card) and the deduction from the payment is made automatically. At no point does a dentist or doctor or anyone else get told how much I've already spent elsewhere.

Which brings me to another point. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "deductible" with health insurance providers in Australia. You're not required to spend $X before you can claim anything, rather the amount you're eligable to deduct from any payment (starting at day 0) is determined by your policy and existing claims to date.

That the same treatment I was looking into, today, in the USA, is twice as expensive in Australia, I'm having second thoughts about the whole thing.