"A private patient in a common room."

Dear Private insurance patient being ripped off

First of all, thank you for sharing your experience on Patient Opinion. I can see that it was a mixed experience which started off very well but beyond which, it appears that there may have been some misunderstanding about using private health insurance and access to a private room.

With regard to your ED attendance, I will be sure to pass those details on to the ED staff and no doubt they will appreciate your positive feedback.

However, with respect to your private health insurance, I would like to follow this up for you if you would like me to do that. Whilst I understand that many patients would like to have a private room, these rooms are always reserved first and foremost on the basis of clinical need and hence the nurse's comments to you. In the event that there are no clinical requirements, it is then at the discretion of the Nurse Manager. I am concerned that perhaps we didn't explain this to you at the time you signed-up and it would be good to discuss this with you. If you would like me to follow this up for you, please write to me directly at alan.lilly@easternhealth.org.au and I will gladly do that.

In the meantime, please be reassured that we are not charging big $ to your insurance company. Rebates are generally lower for public hospitals and in each case, we also receive discounted public funding and in some cases, receive less overall funding for private patients than if they were admitted as a public patient.

I hope this clarifies things for you and I hope that you will be in touch so that we can follow-up this for you in greater detail.

Again, I am very sorry if you feel misled in anyway and I hope that we can resolve this matter for you.

Kind regards, Alan Lilly