Latrobe Health Services

Latrobe Health services has been operating for over 77 years. Their promise to members is to build a valuable partnership, empowering members to make choices based on the best advice, and make it simple for members to understand, manage and access their insurance.

Latrobe Health insurance Australia is part of Member’s Own, a group of not-for-profit and mutual health funds dedicated to serving its members with better coverage, more benefits and unbiased products.

What makes Latrobe Health different?

Latrobe Health cover has no exclusions on Medicare recognised treatments in hospital cover, which makes it distinct from most other health insurance funds. As the cost of healthcare has risen, most private health insurance providers have introduced treatment exclusions to keep premiums down.

Many exclusions include expensive or common procedures such as cardiac/heart surgery, cataract and joint replacement procedures. However, Latrobe Health believes that the fundamental reason for private health insurance is to provide peace of mind to its members no matter what might go wrong and which Medicare-recognised treatment is required.

Therefore, you’ll never have to watch out for these exclusions when you sign up with Latrobe Health.

Given that no exclusions have been introduced over the years, it might be surprising to learn that Latrobe Health’s rate reviews have been below the industry weighted average in 14 of the past 17 years¹. This allows customers to continue receiving a competitive price on their health cover while enjoying the freedom of no treatment exclusions.

Latrobe Health has a focus on one-to-one service that assures a local person is available to speak to you every time you call. They believe in keeping their members well informed of their options.

Which private hospitals does Latrobe Health have an agreement with?

To receive the full benefit from your cover, you must attend one of the Latrobe health insurance participating hospitals that has an agreement with Latrobe.

The image below presents the number of private hospitals and day hospitals that Latrobe Health have an agreement with² in each state. In the parentheses, the maximum number of hospitals that have agreements with any single insurer in the industry is shown.

What kinds of cover do Latrobe Health offer?

Latrobe Health insurance offer several top hospital packages with different co-payment and excess options to adjust affordability.

Co-payments and excess are similar except for one key difference.

An excess is the amount of money you pay towards hospital treatment on a single claim, regardless of the number of days you are in hospital. A co-payment is the amount of money you agree to pay for each day that you are in hospital, up to an agreed amount and sometimes only up to a certain number of days stayed in hospital.

All of Latrobe Health plans cover everything from 365 days accommodation to in-hospital medical gap cover. Top Hospital covers all this without an excess or co-payment arrangement. Members cover is the same as Top Hospital but requires co-payments. Coverwise and Loyal Members cover include the same cover as Top Hospital but offer different types of excess.

Family Care³ is for families with non-studying adult children under 25 years old and allows them to stay under the family health care plan. It also offers co-payment options. Finally, Healthy Start⁴ is a public hospital and extras package with limited private hospital cover, designed for young active singles.

Latrobe Health offer two categories of extras cover. Extras cover refers to services you might want to pursue, not related to GP or hospital visits. For example, physio, dental, optometry and podiatry. The first category of extras cover is available with or without hospital cover, and the other can only be combined with hospital cover.

The extras packages⁵ available with or without hospital cover are Premiere Gold, Premiere Silver and Premiere, which cover extras on a sliding scale, Family Care Gold and Family Care, which are geared towards families, and Dental, an extras package for those purely concerned with the cost of dentistry work.

The extras packages that can be combined with hospital cover are Premiere Plus, with comprehensive extras, Premiere Family, with extras that appeal to families, and Premiere Singles, offering extras that single people would most likely look for.

There are several ways to make a claim with Latrobe Health.

If your medical practice provides HICAPS or Healthpoint, you can claim with them for Chiropractic, Dental, Dietetics, Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Speech Therapy, Optical, and Psychology. You could post a completed claimform with all associated documentation to Latrobe Health.

You could use the Medicare two-way claim form. Or, if you have access to a Latrobe branch, you can claim for Audiology, Eye Therapy, Massage, Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Myotherapy, Health Screenings, Prosthesis, Mouth Guard, Orthotics, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy, Lymphoedema Garments, Home Services/Visiting Nurse, and Preventive/Health Management Appliances.

For hospital claims, a Medicare statement of benefit is required.

Making payments to Latrobe Health insurance

You can choose to pay your Latrobe Health insurance either weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually. When you pay annually and bi-annually you even receive a discount.

Payment can be made in any of the following ways.

• Direct Debit
• BPay
• Credit card – Mastercard or Visa
• Australia Post Billpay
• By mail
• At Latrobe branch

How to become a member

Join Latrobe Health via our secure online application or by calling 13 19 20 and speaking to one of our experts.

We don’t compare all health insurance providers or policies in the market. The availability of policies will change from time to time. Not all policies available from our partners are compared by iSelect and due to commercial arrangements, your stated needs and circumstances, not all policies compared by iSelect will be available to all customers. Some policies are available only from our call centre and others are available only from our website. Click here to view our range of providers.

Sources:
1- http://www.latrobehealth.com.au/Aboutus/AboutLatrobe/tabid/154/Default.aspx
2- http://www.latrobehealth.com.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=8IXcH7ujYgM%3d&tabid=130
3- https://www.latrobehealth.com.au/Hospitalcover/FamilyCare/tabid/107/Default.aspx
4- https://www.latrobehealth.com.au/HospitalCover/HealthyStartST/tabid/186/Default.aspx
5- http://www.latrobehealth.com.au/Extrascover/tabid/109/Default.aspx