Migrants to be charged at 150% for secondary care from April

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Northerner

Northerner

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Type 1
Overseas visitors without a European Health Insurance Care (EHIC) will begin being charged 150% of the tariff pricing for secondary care from April.

The Government, which has launched a crackdown on ‘health tourism’, said it now expects that charging migrants, visitors and former UK residents will help claw back £500m a year by 2017/18.

The implementation of migrant charging plans, announced today, comes as Pulse revealed this month that GPs in 10 pilot areas of England will begin conducting nationality checks of all new patients, asking for an EHIC or S1 form if applicable.

Eligibility for NHS care is based on ordinary residence but the Government has estimated that it loses hundreds of millions every year by providing free healthcare to visitors who do not actually live in England.

The new rules will also apply to UK citizens who live overseas except for those in a limited number of roles employed by the UK Government but stationed overseas, such as the armed forces. English state pensioners living overseas will continue to be entitled to free NHS healthcare but have to show their S1 form.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/20009216.article

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About time ! When abroad other countries cant wait to get your ins details. I have never used but my wife dislocated her shoulder & there was her screaming in pain & all they wanted was bits of paper 😱 We don't know how lucky we are 🙂
 
HOBIE said:
About time ! When abroad other countries cant wait to get your ins details. I have never used but my wife dislocated her shoulder & there was her screaming in pain & all they wanted was bits of paper 😱 We don't know how lucky we are 🙂
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I couldn't have received better care when I broke my femur in Sweden - had my own private room, three good meals a day and they even brought me a telephone so I could call the UK. Cost me nowt! 🙂
 
So did Ins pay Northy ? My wife I I were in Cyprus when she had her shoulder put out. But the service was good but ins paid. We must be the laughing stock of the world. Come to uk & get fixed ! At leased Conservatives are trying to put right ? 😎
 
Ah well, I had to see a GP in Australia. (I ran out of insulin, my own fault) All I needed was a scrip. So I went to reception to explain and had to fill in a form and pay Aus $60 up front, then sit and wait about 90 minutes to see the GP. Then I was free to walk over the road and pay over Aus $100 for a box of Novarapid and a box of Levemir cartridges.

We do have a reciprocal agreement where diabetics can get Medicare free in Australia if they are registered. But you have to go and queue there until someone sees you. When my sister moved there permanently they had to go every day for a week before they got seen and registered! And we were only on holiday ........ We do get Emergency treatment free so I spose I should have just run out of insulin and called an ambulance when I went into DKA?

And any migrant diabetics in the UK can do that too, can't they!!!!
 
How much does "health tourism" actually cost the NHS? Jeremy Hunt promises to end the

Based on the attention the government is devoting to the issue, you could be forgiven for believing that "health tourism" is a significant problem. Ahead of his speech on the subject on Wednesday, Jeremy Hunt has vowed to end the "costly abuse" of the NHS by foreigners, declaring that "by looking at the scale of the problem and at where and how improvements can be made we will help ensure the NHS remains sustainable for many years to come". In the speech, Hunt will announce plans to introduce a new tracking system linking a patient's NHS number to their immigration status and GP charges for those not entitled to free care. But how "costly" is this "abuse"?

In 2011-12, the NHS officially spent £33m on treating foreign nationals, £21m of which was recovered. This means that just £12m, or 0.01 per cent of the health service's £109bn annual budget, was lost to "health tourists".

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/06/how-much-does-health-tourism-actually-cost-nhs

Just another mountain out of a molehill to whip up the electorate. 🙄
 
Well no one actually knows the true cost. Many hospitals will completely ignore the fact that the patient is a migrant and log them as an unknown. This way they can get the funding for the treatment as normal and not wait for insurance or the long process of recovery.
 
MacG3 said:
Well no one actually knows the true cost. Many hospitals will completely ignore the fact that the patient is a migrant and log them as an unknown. This way they can get the funding for the treatment as normal and not wait for insurance or the long process of recovery.
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That's similar to the fact (according to a book I recently read by an A&E doctor, anyway) that someone who arrives at A&E on a busy night, and thus takes 9 hours (or however long) to be seen, will more likely than not be officially reported as having been seen in 3 hours, 59 minutes. 🙄
 
Something that is omitted from the 'savings' equation is the fact that this will not be a free measure to implement. Extra bureaucracy will also take precious time away from frontline staff. Imagine instead how much could be saved if the NHS stopped making short-term savings on denying test strips and education to Type 2s and consequently cutting the bill for treatment of complications - about £5bn? 🙄
 
Northerner said:
I couldn't have received better care when I broke my femur in Sweden - had my own private room, three good meals a day and they even brought me a telephone so I could call the UK. Cost me nowt! 🙂
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Sweden is part of the EU, so UK citizens are treated the same as Swedes. The mother of a British man who was marrying a Swede had a cardiac event at reception the night before the wedding. Her son's partner happened to be an A&E doctor, so insisted she went to hospital, and fortunately, she was given a pass for the wedding & evening meal. All free, of course.
 
I think I was fortunate at the time because I didn't have an EHIC card - they asked me for it, but didn't say anything when I said I didn't have one. I lost count of the number of people who looked after me, goodness knows what it would have cost in the US 😱
 
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