MONEY TIMES: This isn’t the year to skimp on your health care costs

JILL KERBY - PERSONAL FINANCE

Last week I drove a young friend, a keen runner, to a private health clinic. After a run last Sunday, she got home and found she had “a sort of crick in my neck and a stiff shoulder. She aimed the hot water nozzle from her shower on the painful area. It felt better. But after a restless night she woke up in considerable pay.

My young friend is newly employed by an investment bank and has been working from home for the last six months, peering into a big computer screen, typing into her laptop at a small kitchen table. As a trainee she has worked extra long hours learning her new job, remotely.

A big computer screen – the kind she would have had in the office - was provided to every employee who needed one to help prevent neck strain, but she realises now that she probably also needed a proper desk and office chair. Unfortunately, sharing a tiny apartment with a flatmate means there just isn’t enough room for proper office furniture.

Fortunately, her employer does provide a fully paid health insurance policy and on Monday morning she had a quick, free, on-line Skype consultation with a GP who recommended pain relief, heat and gentle rotation exercises. If the discomfort continued more than a few days he recommended she contact a physiotherapist at one of their affiliated medical clinics.

A GP appointment typically costs c€60. Physio treatment can also be c€60 per 30 minute session. If needs be a private MRI scan can cost between €200 and €500 depending on the clinic you attend.

Without a medical card or private health insurance treatment like this can be “unaffordable for many,” said health insurance broker Dermot Goode of totalhealthcover.ie “especially if you are required to see a doctor or consultant, then the physio a couple of times, and then you have to have an MRI or some other investigation.”

According to Goode, younger people have different priorities for health cover than older people or families given that their incidence of chronic illnesses and hospitalisation is much lower than older people.

“There are pretty good entry plans that ensure access to public and private hospitals from the three insurers for about €930 a year,” he explained, “but they do not include out-patient refunds for the kinds of events and treatments that younger people are more likely to use, like GP visits/consultant, visits to minor injury or sports clinic, physiotheraphy, etc.”

Those kinds of plans – including highly competitively priced corporate schemes – are more expensive, he said, but include the sort of benefits that are suitable for younger, healthier people. (Community rated pricing here means that every health insurance plan, including those designed for corporate clients must be available for purchase to everyone.)

Three such plans, none of which include excess payments or outpatient waiting periods, include the Inspire plan from Laya Healthcare at €1,165 per annum that offers a 50 per cent outpatient refund on costs up to €1,000; the VHI PMI 5210 plan at €1,193 per annum which also offers up to €1,000 cash refunds but puts a cash and cap limits on the value of the refund and/or number of visits. The Irish Life Health 4D Health2 plan at €1,361 per annum offers the 50 per cent refund on charges, but has a higher overall limit of €4,000 “and also offers seven personalised outpatient benefit plans from which to choose.”

Each of these plans offers access to different company (minor injury) treatment clinics or affiliated private medical clinics and to good on-line diagnostic treatments (like the GP on call) and services that include healthy living apps, videos and blogs.)

The need for private health insurance has never been greater than during this pandemic and the continuing pressure (and huge waiting lists) on the public health service.

But ensuring that they have good, affordable health insurance isn’t the only precaution that young workers need to consider as winter approaches.

They also need to look into claiming home working expenses. Ideally, they should be setting up more appropriately furnished home offices and ideally receiving the daily €3.20 allowance the Revenue permits employers to pay towards the cost of home office utilities like electricity, heat, broadband and mobile phones. Workers whose employers do not make such a payment should speak to a tax adviser about how much of that cost they can claim on their own tax return.

This month has also seen electricity prices rise by c3 per cent-3.5 per cent from a number of providers that will see a typical household pay another €35 over the next 12 months. (See bonkers.ie for comparison tables.) On top of that, the Public Service Obligation Levy – the annual state subsidy to the renewable energy sector – went up 130 per cent on 1st October from €38.68 to €88.80.

Everyone working from home is going to be using more electricity, heating and broadband before this pandemic ends. Maintaining your health and your wealth, especially if you’re on a modest income, has to be a priority.