Health Insurance Plans

muggles the monkey

I'm thinking of changing our health insurance policy to something a little more affordable.
So far as I can see, the main benefit of having private health insurance is "jumping the queue" when it comes to seeing a consultant or getting a procedure. Do all health insurance policies facilitate these shorter waiting times, or are some policies better than others at doing this?
Our current policy is with laya healthcare (Essential), and I am inclined to stick with them, albeit on a cheaper policy. If there is some pertinent information I should provide let me know.

muggles the monkey

Thanks for the advice Local spartan, but it doesn't really answer my question. I'm aware that if I let my policy go altogether that I will need to suffer public health service waiting periods.
What I need to know is if I downgrade to a cheaper policy, will I have to suffer longer waiting periods that I would with my existing policy?

And an unrelated question - my existing plan has partial coverage for cardiac, special and other procedures in The Blackrock Clinic, the Mater Private and the Beacon Clinic. Do these hospitals provide treatments that cannot be provided by other private hospitals, or even public hospitals? And does anyone know what these treatments are?

caitrionaanne

The type of cover you have wont affect the time you will be waiting as you can only be either public or private. If you downgrade, what you will find is that you have waiting periods to upgrade the cover again in the future.

The Blackrock Clinic, Mater Private and Beacon are 3 of the top hospitals in particular with cardiac - they have the top consultants, up to date technology and equipment so more often than not, its where people want to go for cardiac surgery.