As one of Australia’s leading health funds, Bupa’s mission is to help its members live longer, healthier and happier lives. By offering health insurance and great quality services for aged care and retirement, dental, optical and community wellbeing initiatives, Bupa aims to improve the health of all Australians.
Bupa private health insurance offers a variety of cover options for hospital, extras and combined policies for people at all life stages. Bupa believes in giving its members more choices when it comes to their cover, which is why they offer their FLEXtras and customisable combined cover policies.
This information is current as of December 2022. For the full details of what’s covered on a Bupa health insurance policy, refer to the relevant policy documents.
With Bupa hospital cover, you’ll be covered for treatment as a private patient when the treatment is listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and is covered by your policy. Bupa offers Basic, Basic Plus, Bronze Plus, Silver Plus, and Gold tiered hospital insurance policies.
Bupa health insurance extras cover you for out-of-hospital treatment that Medicare doesn’t cover. With Bupa’s top-level extras product, Top Extras Boost, you can receive up to 80% back at Members First providers up to your annual limit.
Depending on your policy, you could receive 100% back on dental check-ups with a partnered Members First dentist every 6 months when combined with a hospital policy. If you want a combined cover policy, you can mix and match extras and hospital policies to get exactly the cover you want. For example, you could get high-level extras with a low-level hospital policy or lower-level extras with a high-level hospital policy.
Yes, Bupa offers cover for emergency ambulance services and on-the-spot treatment on all extras cover policies. Ambulance services through extras cover are capped at one trip per year for singles or twice a year for couples and families. This cover is also available on all hospital policies except Silver Plus Advanced Hospital and Gold Complete Hospital which offer unlimited emergency ambulance transport or on-the-spot treatment.
If you want cover for unlimited emergency ambulance services or non-emergency ambulance services, you can take out an ambulance cover policy which can be purchased separately. Non-emergency trips are capped up to $5000 per person per year.
Yes, Bupa will cover you for pre-existing conditions, although you will likely have to serve a 12-month waiting period before they will pay towards hospital treatment relating to your condition. A pre-existing condition won’t affect your waiting periods for extras products.
If you already served a waiting period for your pre-existing condition with a previous health fund, you won’t have to re-serve the waiting period for the same or lower level of cover when you switch to a Bupa health insurance policy.
Yes, for hospital insurance, the waiting periods are the same across all funds, 12 months for pre-existing conditions (excluding rehabilitation, psychiatric and palliative care), pregnancy and birth if covered, and 2 months for everything else.
For extras cover, the waiting periods will differ between policies and services covered, so you should refer to the relevant policy documents to confirm the waiting periods on your policy before you sign up.
For hospital claims, the bill will typically be sent directly to Bupa for payment. You may have to pay an excess or the gap on admission or when you leave the hospital. If you do receive a hospital bill, send it to Bupa, and they will handle it from there.
For extra services, you can claim on the spot by swiping your Bupa membership card, online through the MyBupa members portal or the Bupa smartphone app, or by filling out a claims form and posting it to Bupa.
You can pay your Bupa health insurance premiums with a direct debit, credit card or PayPal. While you won’t receive a discount for paying your premiums annually, you could save by locking in a lower rate before the annual rate rise.
Yes, when you’re admitted to hospital and claim on your Bupa health insurance, you will typically have to pay an excess of $250, $500 or $750. If you choose a $750 excess, this is up to a maximum of $750 per year for singles, and up to $1500 per policy per year for couples and families.
For select family policies, there’s no excess on hospital admissions for dependants.
To cancel your Bupa health insurance membership, give them a call, and their customer service team will walk you through the cancellation process. Alternatively, you can suspend your cover for up to two months and you won’t have to pay your premiums for that period.
Want to see how Bupa stacks up to the competition? With our free comparison tool, you can compare policies from our panel of trusted health funds side-by-side to help you find cover that suits you.
