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PMI

N

nav_97

Member
Messages
16
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Hello all, I hope you are all well.

I am a 22 year old type 1 diabetic, , with GAD and severe depression. I was looking into trying to get private medical insurance in general for quicker treatment and better care overall in general.

I decided to have a look around, and i knew before hand that they would not cover pre-existing conditions or chronic conditions which makes sense. I was however, wondering if they may cover acute flare ups in regards to the condition. This may be a longshot but i thought it may be worth asking.

Before I did, I wanted to ask the forum if anyone else took out private medical insurance and what their expierence with it was. I also found out that diabetes.co.uk also works with healthnet services and was wondering if anyone has had any experience with them.

I am basically just researching at the moment, so any advice regarding private medical insurance will be greatly appreciated !

Thank you for reading this long question, .

Best regards,

Nav
 
It's sounds like you're trying to insure the car after you crashed it. What 'flare ups' do you have?
 
eventhorizon said:
It's sounds like you're trying to insure the car after you crashed it. What 'flare ups' do you have?
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your reply.

Short term problems that can be "cured" or atleast return yourself to your former health. Things like DKA, a severe hypo...
I have never experienced any of these, this is more of a precaution for the potential future.
 
nav_97 said:
Many thanks for your reply.

Short term problems that can be "cured" or atleast return yourself to your former health. Things like DKA, a severe hypo...
I have never experienced any of these, this is more of a precaution for the potential future.
Click to expand...

Hi there, are you in the UK? I doubt any private health insurance would cover you for DKA or a severe hypo. What you would get is an NHS ambulance and very speedy treatment. If you mean some sort of aftercare then again I do not think you can get such cover in the UK. I have private health insurance Provided by work but paid for privately) and it won't go anywhere near a chronic disease. Very interesting post though, I shall watch with interest. Maybe you could pay privately if you want extra blood tests etc though?
 
nav_97 said:
Many thanks for your reply.

Short term problems that can be "cured" or atleast return yourself to your former health. Things like DKA, a severe hypo...
I have never experienced any of these, this is more of a precaution for the potential future.
Click to expand...

Nav - There are very few options for conditions such as diabetes, when it comes to PMI. It's a chronic condition and the costs of treating it would likely be very expensive indeed, when compared with what many people would consider a competitive or affordable premium.

You should also be aware that when it comes to something like diabetes, anything happening relating to that, like, say kidney disease or nerve damage wouldn't be covered either.

PMI isn't designed to cover emergencies, like DKA, so I'd be astonished if you found cover for that sort of thing.

Some very large PMI group schemes will have slightly wider cover - depending on what they will pay, and the number of employees they have in their schemes.

I used to work for a large company with a closer relationship to a PMI provider. Our cover, at a certain level in the food chain, was quite, quite outstanding, but we had thousands of members in the scheme. My cover was free, but my partner's cover, whilst competitively costed, didn't have the same benefits as I did, but that was all about their desire to get me back to work (in the event of a claim), to save on paying me not to work.

If your employer has PMI, ask if you can be permitted to join their scheme. In most cases, the risk is balanced out over the number of members.

As others have suggested, it makes sense to speak with a specialist broker, who knows the market inside out. They'll likely take a brief medical history from you and be able to gauge how you would be viewed in the marketplace.

Good luck with it all.

For completeness, whilst I am now an employee of DCUK, I have no relationship with any brokers in this regard,
 
Thank you all for your responses, really appreciate it.

I will try and consult a broker, and see what they say. For the interest if others, i will report back with what I find, although most of you probably have a good idea of what would be covered.
 
nav_97 said:
Thank you all for your responses, really appreciate it.

I will try and consult a broker, and see what they say. For the interest if others, i will report back with what I find, although most of you probably have a good idea of what would be covered.
Click to expand...

Hi, would you mind telling us what your actual issues are with the treatment you currently receive from your Dr, etc? x
 
My current treatment from my doctors, nurses ect, is actually good. I am quite happy so far with my treamtment. My concern was for my first diagnosis of each of my conditions. I remember for type 1 diabetes, i became very ill very quickly. I was also in the middle of my exams which made everything even worse.

Tried to book and appointment with the GP at the time, had to wait 4 weeks. During thise 4 weeks i became very ill, feeling like i was burning, my sight was deteriorating, monster thirst. I was struggling to read my exams, looking at the paper at funny angles. People also though I was making this up, but i barely had any energy to argue.

In the end when we finally got the appointment, i had to argue with my doctor to do a blood glucose text - he was heavily reluctant as there has been no history of diabetes in my family. Finally got it done, and found out I had type 1 with dka, they were pretty shocked I was still standing.

A similar situation happened with depression, although I turned into a recluse for a year and wasted away before they realised i was in need of urgent treatment.

Point is, in terms of outpatient care I have been pretty happy with the quality i recieved, but getting a diagnosis has been a nightmare, and I recieved the stick from many people.

Sorry for ranting, really need to learn to be concise .
 
The gp is the front line and can be pretty hard to break through. I am amazed they were reluctant to do a blood test! Now you're in the system things should be a little easier. You had all the classic dka symptoms but like me didn't realize how ill you actually were. Easy to say now but you should have gone to a+e and believe me they look after you pretty dam quick with suspected dka.
 

Very true, but thats where I got some stick. My mother told me there are people who were in worse condition who would be seen first, i would wait ages and it was probably nothing. I should have ignored that advice. Problem is that I had no clue that my symptoms matched dka, it was my first experience with it. Funnily enough due to poor knowledge of the disease at that point, my parents thought i was type 2 as i researched online and my symptoms matched a fair few with type 2. They were already having a bit of a row saying I should have looked after my self, but the symtoms came on way too quickly and there were no signs in previous blood test results to indicate anything of the kind.How wrong they were in that regard.I was also told to do my exams first as I did not want to pull out for any reason. That also played a much smaller part as the last thing I wanted to do was to repeat the year.
 

Nav - I think you have to be very clear in understanding some things about PMI.

If you have PMI, and feel having a private consultation would be of benefit to you, you still need to see a GP who will make the referral - or not.

To be clear, I have never had a GP say they would not make a referral for me - after all, it's not costing them anything, but you still need them to do it. Once you have seen a consultant privately for x condition, it is sometimes possible to revisit them, for another instance of the initial condition, without referral, but not always.

It doesn't have to be your own GP, it can be any GP, but if you have to find a private GP to make a referral, there is still some sort of delay in making and attending an appointment for that. In my opinion, one's own GP is better placed to do this.

For example, a few years ago, I had a bleed from somewhere that shouldn't happen. When I saw my GP and explained this, he didn't even want to examine me. He just lifted the phone. I was out, with both referral and an appointment (next day or couple of days I think) in about 10 minutes.

However, I currently see an Endo (not for diabetes), sometimes privately and sometimes on the NHS. I started seeing him privately, but he only does one session a month privately, and the rest of the time, he works in the NHS, so private consultants are simply not always available. In fact, one of the reasons I resorted back to seeing him on the NHS was because I could see him earlier and more frequently on the NHS. His private appointment waiting list, coupled with his holidays etc., rendered that impractical - at £200 a visit.

So, please be careful of buying in haste, without understanding exactly what you might be buying for yourself. Learning that as a time when you can't see the person you want, and anyway, your insurer have declared whatever you wanted to see him about is linked to your diabetes, anxiety or depression. You could be several hundreds of pounds out of pocket, in premiums, an no closer to a medical appointment.

Caveat Emptor - Buyer beware.
 

Thank for the honesty and the warning. In the end I will only enquire, i would never buy anything in haste - especially if I don't understand it.

There would always be that risk of linking something back to one of my conditions, but this is not to replace what treatment i already have , more to work inline with and help with other potential problems that may rise.

These do not have to be linked to any of the existing conditions. In the end I am only looking for it to fill in for acute, short term conditions that could arise, whether it would be a simple diagnostic test or referral for one, because the time waiting for one from my GP is just way too long and anything to shorten that down would be helpful.

Again, these are just enquires, its why I asked on the forum for others to advise and why i look online - to always make sure I can get a better understanding of what I could potentially buy. So your help is very much appreciated .

If by the end I can't see any benefit, or I could see trouble with the company, then it would definitely be best to say no and not take a policy.
 
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