Is private health insurance really worth it?

LAST week, the VHI announced yet another increase in subscriptions. It is not their first in recent months and with the way prices are going in Ireland, it won’t be their last. However, they are not alone, as other private health providers have also hiked their prices.

With waiting lists in public hospitals a complete shambles, it is no wonder that over two-million people in this country enjoy the benefits of private medical cover. Or do they?

I was worried about a mole-type growth on my hand some months ago. It had been there for years, but in recent times it had changed colour and all publicity surrounding moles tell us that is perhaps a telltale sign that it is time to let the professionals look at it.

Thanks to my willingness to pay €160 for a consultation, I got an appointment within three weeks. But I was slightly amazed to discover I wasn’t actually having a face-to-face meeting with a specialist; rather, a detailed photo of the offending mole was taken and sent to the consultant for examination.

I didn’t worry too much – photography has come on by leaps and bounds over the years and me calling it a photo is just a layman’s term for a scan of the said mole. I didn’t see an image being printed off anywhere and sent in the post to be examined by someone somewhere else.

Three weeks later, as guaranteed, I received a phone call from a member of the consultancy team, who reassured me that all was okay, but perhaps I might want to visit a dermatologist for a further consultation.

Why not? You can never be too sure, so I opted to have the results sent to my GP, who would then make an appointment for me with the expert. All happened quickly and soon the notification arrived in the post.

I glanced at it and made a note of the date, but a few days beforehand I again looked at the appointment card only to discover it was for a date in early June 2025, not 2024, as I had wrongly presumed. If that was through the private system, where money changes hands expensively and quickly, I thought to myself what hope would I have if that was the public system, where we hear horror stories of people waiting years for such an appointment – some even dying before receiving a date?

That got me thinking about the public system and why it is so congested. If I needed an answer to my question, I got it last week. Not wanting to go into too much detail, let’s settle for me recounting what happened to someone close to me.

That person regularly attends a specialist clinic, where, as part of the process the results of a recent CT scan are discussed. Their next consultation is scheduled for early October, but despite receiving notification of that appointment several months ago, no such notification has been received for the necessary scan.

Having pointed out this discrepancy to both hospital clinics, everyone is in agreement that an appointment with a consultant is a waste of time without the necessary scan, yet with seven weeks to go and having had months to organise a scan in time, no-one was prepared to move the dial, so to speak, and align both parties. Hence the original consultation had to be deferred.

You might say what’s the harm, there may be a slight delay? But no-one wasted their time. True, but the only reason that happened was due to action on behalf of the family member to ensure all ducks were in a row beforehand and when they weren’t a decision was made to have the original consultation deferred. Otherwise, time and a valuable appointment slot would have been wasted.

You would have to wonder how often a scenario like that gets played out on other patients in other hospitals. Is it a lack of resources or a lack of proper management?

Funnily enough, if a public patient is referred to a private facility for a scan, the appointment goes out and is honoured on time. There is no such thing as 30 or 40 people being given an appointment for the same time – each gets a specific allocation and everything seems to go like clockwork.

Over the coming months, we will hear a lot pre-budget talk about how much money is being given over the health, education, housing or whatever – but throwing money at a problem is not the only solution. We have found to our cost that doesn’t work – better use of funds is the answer, but above all else, management and accountability is the key.