We have been getting phone calls from patients who are insured with BUPA or AHSA and who are booked for confinement at Norwest Private Hospital.
AHSA funds are ACA Health Benefits Fund, AIA Health Insurance, Australian Unity Health Limited, CBHS Corporate Health Pty Ltd, CBHS Health Fund Limited, Defence Health, Doctors Health Fund, Emergency Services Health Pty Ltd, Frank Health Insurance, GMHBA, HBF Health Ltd, HCI, Health Insurance Fund of Australia Limited, Health Partners, Latrobe Health Services, Navy Health, Nurses & Midwives Health Pty Ltd, Onemedifund, Peoplecare Health Insurance, Phoenix Health Fund, Police Health Limited, Queensland Country Health Fund, Reserve Bank Health Society Ltd, Teachers Health Fund, Territory Health Fund, TUH, UniHealth Insurance, Union Health, Westfund.
Healthscope (who owns Norwest Private Hospital) is at an impasse with BUPA and AHSA about funding.
Private hospitals do not charge a gap and so their income (except for self-funding patients) is what health funds pay them for the various Medicare item number relating to patient admissions. The amounts health funds pay vary from fund to fund and from hospital to hospital.
Healthscope reports that BUPA and AHSA have not agreed to adequate hospital funding to cover costs.
As a consequence, Healthscope has advised BUPA and AHSA that they have no choice but to terminate contracts with them, unless there is an appropriate new funding agreement.
If BUPA or AHSA don’t come to agreements then BUPA members wont be covered after 20 November 2025 and AHSA wont be covered after 4 December 2025.
From my past experience most, likely new agreements will be signed before these dates and so there will not be an issue.
So if you are booked for confinement at Norwest Private Hospital and are with BUPA or a AHSA fund …
• if you there is no issue. Your fund will cover you for confinement at Norwest.
• if conceive after mid-March 2025 and your EDC is after the cut off dates, it is most likely new agreements will be signed and so there will not be an issue
• if conceive after mid-March 2025 and your EDC is after the cut off dates and new agreements have not been signed, then I can easily arrange for you to go to the Sydney Adventist Hospital Wahroonga (the SAN) to have your baby. The SAN has agreements in place with both BUPA and AHSA and so does not have this funding issue.
