As one of Australia’s leading health funds with almost four million members, Bupa’s mission is to help its members live longer, healthier, happier lives and make their healthcare seamless. By offering health insurance and great quality services like 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 November 2024. For the full details of what’s covered on a Bupa health insurance policy, refer to the relevant Private Health Information Statements.
With Bupa hospital cover, you can 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 on selected services (dental, physiotherapy, chiropractic and podiatry) at Members First providers, up to yearly limits and depending on terms, conditions and waiting periods.
On eligible products, you could get 100% back on a dental check-up and clean once every six months, outside your yearly limits at Members First Ultimate providers (depending on your level of cover, terms, conditions and waiting periods).
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, all Bupa hospital cover options come with uncapped emergency ambulance cover, including the cost of all emergency transport and on-the-spot treatment by their recognised providers. If your ambulance costs are covered by a third party, it won’t be covered by Bupa.
You may have to serve a 12-month waiting period before Bupa will pay benefits towards hospital treatment relating to your pre-existing condition. A pre-existing condition won’t affect your waiting periods for extras products.
If you’ve 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 within 60 days of cancelling your previous cover.
Yes, for hospital cover, the waiting periods are 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, Bupa applies the following waiting periods:
Be sure to refer to the relevant policy documents to confirm the waiting periods on your policy before you sign up.
If you’ve already served waiting periods 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 within 60 days of cancelling your previous cover.
For hospital claims, the bill will typically be sent directly to Bupa for payment. You may have to pay an excess on admission or when you leave the hospital. If you do receive a hospital bill, you can submit claims through myBupa.
For extras services, you can claim on the spot by swiping your Bupa membership card at participating healthcare providers. Otherwise, you can claim online through the myBupa members portal or the myBupa smartphone app.
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 hospital 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.
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.
