Sourcing Private Medical Treatment

How to use your Private Medical Procedure benefit

If you are an Essential Hospital Treatment Plan or Access Hospital Treatment Plan or Premier Hospital Treatment Plan medical insurance policyholder, once your claim has been approved you will have the option of using our independent treatment sourcing service to negotiate a price for your care with a hospital on your behalf or alternatively you will be able to negotiate directly with a hospital.

The benefit entitlement (budget of money) is reviewed on an ongoing basis with the aim of ensuring that they are sufficient to meet the cost of an all-in package of private treatment at most UK private hospitals other than the more expensive central London ones.

Policyholders wishing to have private health care can take advantage of the availability of fixed-price packages in the private healthcare market. Fixed-price packages are offered by private hospitals to individuals buying medical treatment with their own money or in this case, using the budget provided by PatientChoice.

How do Fixed-Price Packages work?

Fixed-price packages are available throughout private hospitals in the UK and are generally designed for individuals who are buying treatment with their own money.

The packages normally include:

1. the consultant surgeon/physician and anesthetist fees
2. hospital charges relating to the use of the operating theatre
3. hospital accommodation, personal meals, drugs and dressings
4. in-patient investigations such as x-rays
5. in-patient physiotherapy
6. the cost of any complications occurring within 30 days of your procedure where these relate to the original condition

Tailor-made Treatment

Using your PatientChoice budget you can tailor your fixed-price package to reflect your own preferences. For example, you might wish to pay more to have your own room or alternatively you might wish to reduce the cost by sharing accommodation. In either case you can keep any budget of money that is not spent.

As the cost of fixed-price packages are quoted in advance of medical treatment you will easily be able to see what your PatientChoice benefit amount can buy you and make easy price comparisons with other hospitals around the country if you wish to shop around.

Please note that if you are suffering from cancer, diabetes or have a poor medical history, which could complicate your procedure, then some hospitals may decline to offer a fixed-price package. In these more complex cases you will more likely wish to be treated in the NHS and still receive a cash benefit.

Treatment Sourcing

You can either arrange your fixed-price package yourself or you can use our independent medical treatment sourcing service to do all the work on your behalf. This service will help you find treatment to suit your needs and can even organise care down to such detail as the admission time and date. The service will always act on your instructions: so it can either arrange a package with the specialist you have already seen at your local hospital or, if you prefer, can shop around for care with other specialists at other hospitals.

Please see our Terms and Conditions for specific exclusions that apply to our plans.