You don't have to hold private health insurance to attend the private urgent care and A&E clinics. An uninsured person can decide to pay the higher consultation charge because they think they might get faster care in a more convenient location. But the daily hospital fees do effectively prohibit "self-payer" public patients from then being admitted to a private hospital such as the Beacon.
At the Beacon A&E, Vivas Health members receive direct cover for the full cost of CT and MRI scans, while VHI members can reclaim the full cost.
Bupa suspended negotiations with new hospitals in the months leading up to its withdrawal in December, meaning its members are currently not covered for the Beacon Hospital.
But the insurer has initiated talks with several private facilities, including the Beacon Hospital, since the Quinn Group took over its Irish business.
Insurance won't cover all of the charges. Unless they hold the most expensive insurance plans, patients who need to be admitted to the Beacon Hospital will have to pay a shortfall on the daily rate. Likewise, consumers need to hold a certain type of day-to-day medical expenses cover to be insured for the cost of treatments at the VHI SwiftCare clinics.
Private health insurance holders are used to having to pay up when their cover falls short.
Jimmy Sheehan, the founder of the Blackrock Clinic and a shareholder in the Galway Clinic, noted at a Dublin conference on private healthcare last month that the "tragedy" with Blackrock was that just before it opened in 1984, VHI decided that cover for heart procedures at the clinic would be available only on its higher premium D and E plans. People on its most popular plans were denied full cover.
Although more than half of the population now has some private health insurance, that percentage could fall if premiums spiral beyond their reach.
VHI chief executive Vincent Sheridan ominously told the same conference that, judging from the annual customer reaction to VHI's medical inflation-
fuelled price increases, about 10 per cent of people with health insurance find it difficult to pay for it.
The proportion of people covered will decline, he says, if there is increased reliance on more expensive private beds in a country with a potential "glut" of private hospitals.
Faster, more comfortable healthcare could become the preserve of a much smaller niche.
