Private Health Insurance
Private health insurance helps cover the cost of services not included under Medicare, such as hospital care, dental, optical, and ambulance cover. In Australia, you can choose the level of cover that’s right for you and your family — from basic hospital cover to comprehensive health and extras packages.
What are "extras"?
“Extras” cover refers to services outside hospital care, including:
- Dental
- Optical
- Chiropractic
- Physiotherapy
- Remedial massage
…and more.
Who is covered?
You can choose from a range of policies to suit your needs, whether you’re single, part of a couple, a family, or a single parent family.
Getting to know your dental cover
We recommend getting to know your private health insurer and understanding your dental entitlements. Dental cover is generally divided into:
General Dental
Routine treatments such as check-ups, hygiene cleans, fillings, extractions, X-rays, and mouthguards.
Major Dental
Complex treatments such as surgical wisdom tooth removal, orthodontics, dentures, CEREC restorations, crowns and bridges, and dental implants.
Different policies have different annual limits for each category, so it’s important to know your level of cover.
Why are we NOT a Preferred Provider?
At Dentistry on Unley, we welcome all health funds but choose not to limit our care to just one or two preferred provider agreements. We believe you should have the freedom to choose your own dentist, based on trust and continuity of care - not dictated by your health fund.
The Australian Dental Association (ADA) shares our concern that preferred provider schemes can limit choice and may not always serve the patient’s best interest.
Frequently Asked Questions
You need to be comfortable in talking and being treated by your dentist of your choice. You need to be comfortable in the fact that your dentist is recommending the best treatment for you. Continuity of care is very important to dental care delivery. Your dental health care will be more effective if you maintain your relationship with your dentist, rather than having your choice of dentist dictated by your health fun.
How much are you getting back from your health fund? With premiums rising and rebates shrinking, find a more generous policy! Visit iselect.com.au for a comparison of health funds.
Health funds have openly and aggressively campaigned to get dentists to “sign up” to their contracted provider arrangements. Health funds are openly promoting to patients that they should see a health fund contracted dentist. Some health funds are offering a higher dental rebate for each item of service if the procedure is performed by a contracted dentist. Some funds have even brought their own dental surgeries and employ their own dentists.
The “preferred practitioners” are not actually preferred because of dental ability but because they meet the fee criteria set by the health funds and have agreed to be contractually bound to the health fund.
ADA National fee surveys show that dentists’ fees over the 15 year period from 2000-2014 have increased on average by less than 4% annually. • You should ask what your health fund average premium increases have been over the same period. • The Federal Government has been subsidising health fund premiums by 30%. Whilst this has recently been reviewed there is still substantial subsidy on offer. • You should ask how much your health fund’s dental rebates have gone up over the same period. • The lack of increased dental rebates explains the increasing gap between fee and rebate. This has not been caused by your dentist
The ADA believes this may cause “tiered’ levels of care. Preferred contracted provider schemes have not been successful anywhere else in the world. If you pay the full premium you deserve the best care and the same rebate as any other contributor regardless of which dentist you choose to see.
This information has been sourced from the Australian Dental Association (ADA).