4 ms·

In the UK which hospital you would go to is nearly 100% based on ease of getting there and the facilities they have on hand. The idea of driving past a hospita

In the UK which hospital you would go to is nearly 100% based on ease of getting there and the facilities they have on hand. The idea of driving past a hospital to get to another which is more friendly to my insurance plan completely blows my mind.

dogma1138 8y ago
Only if you use the NHS, private insurance would require you to pay extra if you don’t live there especially for inner London Hospitals.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  Have you lived in the UK? I personally haven't encountered anyone who has had that issue. Most people primarily use the NHS and private health insurance is provided only occasionally as an employee benefit (often by American companies). That's nice for perhaps getting faster treatment for minor issues and maybe getting a nicer room but generally not required. I'm sure that the 1% have other arrangements but that's another thing altogether.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there. I haven’t used the NHS for the 6 years that I’ve lived here tried it once when I was looking for some physiotherapy for my knee got told by the GP that it will take 3 months called AXA which was then my provider and got an approval for 3 sessions which was then extended to 12 the same week. I don’t even book GP appointments via the normal NHS route any more all of the GPs are technically private anyhow they just accept NHS patients and getting a booking via private health care is just that much more convenient since they see you within 24 hours and evening appointments are much more available.
    - VBprogrammer 8y ago
      > If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there. That's kind of the opposite of what I was saying anyway. It's fair enough if you are making a decision to go to a more expensive hospital for your own reasons. Yeah, private healthcare in the UK is convenient but far from essential. Physiotherapy was actually exactly what came to mind, I believe it's one of those parts which are always chronically under-resourced.
      - dogma1138 8y ago
        It’s also the fact that you can’t register with more than one GP so if you don’t live within say 30min of your work going to doctor appointments is a day off essentially not to mention that if you don’t pretend to be dying when you call them they’ll tell you to get some rest and call again in 3 days. If you go to A&E sure NHS is good enough, but for preventative care and general appointments however it’s pretty poor same goes for any kind of specialist care unless you are getting it at the hospital. Don’t get me wrong universal healthcare is important single payer universal isn’t, and the NHS’s trust structure is really poor so if you live in an area where the trust is literarily bankrupt the level of care you get is piss poor at best. I think the biggest mistake the Brits did is to prevent the NHS from providing premium services at a cost like better rooms or cosmetic surgery. The best healthcare systems in the world are those in which the healthcare providers are non-profit, are required to maintain a specific subset of services defined by the government, aren’t allowed to deny service but are allowed to make money on the side with things that aren’t covered by the government. That extra money is key because as non-profits the only thing they can do with it is to reinvest it in either their staff or their services there are no shareholders to give dividends too. This is something the NHS lacks I would much rather pay the NHS the same money I pay to Bupa and get the same service as I can get now knowing that some of that money is going to go into improving the NHS as a whole.
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        The NHS's trust structure is more about forcing a market into somewhere it has no place than about healthcare outcomes. When we once elected to go private to queue jump we got to see an NHS consultant privately, in an NHS hospital, and all follow on treatment was on the NHS. So it was a simple case of a few hundred pounds for private scan and consultation. Most hospitals and maternity units have private rooms as an option. As far as I know they're not restricted or limited in any way, unless it's changed since our experiences. We've not needed a hospital for a while.

dogma1138 8y ago

Only if you use the NHS, private insurance would require you to pay extra if you don’t live there especially for inner London Hospitals.

VBprogrammer 8y ago
Have you lived in the UK? I personally haven't encountered anyone who has had that issue. Most people primarily use the NHS and private health insurance is provided only occasionally as an employee benefit (often by American companies). That's nice for perhaps getting faster treatment for minor issues and maybe getting a nicer room but generally not required. I'm sure that the 1% have other arrangements but that's another thing altogether.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there. I haven’t used the NHS for the 6 years that I’ve lived here tried it once when I was looking for some physiotherapy for my knee got told by the GP that it will take 3 months called AXA which was then my provider and got an approval for 3 sessions which was then extended to 12 the same week. I don’t even book GP appointments via the normal NHS route any more all of the GPs are technically private anyhow they just accept NHS patients and getting a booking via private health care is just that much more convenient since they see you within 24 hours and evening appointments are much more available.
  - VBprogrammer 8y ago
    > If you get private insurance you pay extra to cover inner London hospitals unless you live there. That's kind of the opposite of what I was saying anyway. It's fair enough if you are making a decision to go to a more expensive hospital for your own reasons. Yeah, private healthcare in the UK is convenient but far from essential. Physiotherapy was actually exactly what came to mind, I believe it's one of those parts which are always chronically under-resourced.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      It’s also the fact that you can’t register with more than one GP so if you don’t live within say 30min of your work going to doctor appointments is a day off essentially not to mention that if you don’t pretend to be dying when you call them they’ll tell you to get some rest and call again in 3 days. If you go to A&E sure NHS is good enough, but for preventative care and general appointments however it’s pretty poor same goes for any kind of specialist care unless you are getting it at the hospital. Don’t get me wrong universal healthcare is important single payer universal isn’t, and the NHS’s trust structure is really poor so if you live in an area where the trust is literarily bankrupt the level of care you get is piss poor at best. I think the biggest mistake the Brits did is to prevent the NHS from providing premium services at a cost like better rooms or cosmetic surgery. The best healthcare systems in the world are those in which the healthcare providers are non-profit, are required to maintain a specific subset of services defined by the government, aren’t allowed to deny service but are allowed to make money on the side with things that aren’t covered by the government. That extra money is key because as non-profits the only thing they can do with it is to reinvest it in either their staff or their services there are no shareholders to give dividends too. This is something the NHS lacks I would much rather pay the NHS the same money I pay to Bupa and get the same service as I can get now knowing that some of that money is going to go into improving the NHS as a whole.
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        The NHS's trust structure is more about forcing a market into somewhere it has no place than about healthcare outcomes. When we once elected to go private to queue jump we got to see an NHS consultant privately, in an NHS hospital, and all follow on treatment was on the NHS. So it was a simple case of a few hundred pounds for private scan and consultation. Most hospitals and maternity units have private rooms as an option. As far as I know they're not restricted or limited in any way, unless it's changed since our experiences. We've not needed a hospital for a while.