ambulance bill $814 only here 2 weeks

[Guest Sion]

Hi please help,

we went to melbourne the 2nd week we arrived for a little holiday (we are on PM visa) my 20 month old daughter had a fit so she was taken to hospital by ambulance we had a bill today for $814 we had no idea we had to pay for ambulance service (one thing we did not look into).

 

Do we have to pay ? what can we do it looks like medicare doesnt cover the cost and you needed seperate cover (feel really stupid not knowing this).

 

any advice would be great the, hospital was only 2km down the road but we had no idea as we had only been in melbourne for about 6 hours when it happened.

 

Cheers

 

Sion

[Guest ems]

Hi Sion.

Really sorry to hear about your daughter, hope she is on the mend now.

I'm really not an expert on this as not there yet but as far as i understand you need to have private medical insurance to cover ambulance call outs, otherwise you get the bill.

There will be plenty on here who will be able to advise you more appropriately.

Your not stupid, its an easy mistake to make. Just terrible that you had to find out the hard way.

[Guest Libby1971]

Sorry but I think you do have to pay.

 

I think it costs about $100 to get ambulance cover from the Post Office for a family. The details may change according to how many are in the family.

 

How is your little one now?

[andy and lindsey]

Hi there I am afraid that you will probably have to pay it. We were warned quite soon after we arrived to take out ambulance cover - we use SA ambulance initially but now have private health insurance which has ambulance cover included. Cover for the family (just ambulance cover) was $115 for the year. We have never had to use it (thankfully) but now know that we woudn't need to worry about bills should the need arise.

 

Hope that your little one is ok now

 

Lindsey

[lorluc]

Hi

 

Hope your little one is okay. Exactly the same thing happened to us. We had only been here 3 months when my son had a fit. We were at a friends 40th birthday party in Hallett Cove...

 

An ambulance was called and was there within a few minutes....but we knew it would cost us. We did know that you have to pay for an ambulance, it was just one of those things we hadn't got round to doing.

 

It's about $100 for a year.........

 

My son was taken straight to Flinders A&E and admitted straight away. We then spent 3 days in hospital which was all covered under Medicare.

 

Its horrible when something like this happens. My son had never fitted before, and it was the most scariest thing of my life!

 

Hope all is well.

[Guest Sion]

Thanks guys,

suppose i will have to phone up today and pay then get down to the post office to get cover.

 

My daughter is fine now but it was scary, The ambulance crew were brilliant and the doctors were. i suppose its a small price to pay for such a good service and piece of mind.

 

thanks again

 

Sion

[Guest Happychick]

Hi ,

A friend suggested this today, if you have only been here a few weeks, did you have any travel insurance that you took out in the uk that might cover the cost ??

 

Take care

 

Lisa

[Guest graandjac]

:sad:sorry about the little one, if you shop around you can get family ambulance cover for about $60.00 ours was with medicare.

[Guest guest569]

:sad:sorry about the little one, if you shop around you can get family ambulance cover for about $60.00 ours was with medicare.

We have ambulance cover with sa ambulance BUT do i now take it that we are only covered in sa ???? ( sounds silly i know but haven't thought about it before )

[foxychick]

Not silly at all, this recently occured to me, so I checked and it says on the information, covered thoughout Australia

[Guest graandjac]

:unsure:fair point pp i need to check ours as i asumed it was country wide..??

[Guest Sion]

Just a quick update phone vic ambulance people who advised us to write a letter to their manager explaining what happened and they might let us off.

 

we sent the letter last week so fingers crossed

[Guest Cal]

Hi there, I work with SA Ambulance Service and I have found some information on the website. Go to http://www.saambulance.com.au and click on the 'Products and Services' link. This will be provide you for information about ambulance cover etc. You can also pick up a leaflet from your local Post Office.

 

SA Ambulance Service, as with many others, provide services other to emergency transport. Further services include, but are not limited to, patient transport and hospital transfer. It should be noted that to say 'I have ambulance cover' does not cover just the use of a vehicle; it may only be hospital transfers that you are covered for. Check your policy and/or with your provider.

 

Not all health plans from Medicare and Mutual Community etc cover you for ambulance care.

 

Contact Victoria Ambulance again but I doubt they will simply 'let you off' as technically they are not in the wrong as it is your responsibility to check this sort of thing! However, we all forget things... so good luck!