Private cost - Knee replacement surgery?

lightspeed

Hi

My mother is suffering from osterarthritis in her knee and the doctors now say that surgery is now necessary. She is at the point where she cant leave the house and we just got a letter from HSE saying her surgery would be within 30 months.

She cant wait that long so it looks like we have to go private but we dont have any insurance. She has a medical card but i assume that wont cover anything on the private option.

Can anyone advise roughly what the cost would be going private for knee replacement surgery?

Also If I pay for it given that im working full time, can i claim tax relief for the expense and to what limit?

Wesser

Just call the local private hospital and ask.

Probably in the region if 10 to 15 k.

Peregrinus

lightspeed wrote: »

. . . Also If I pay for it given that im working full time, can i claim tax relief for the expense and to what limit?

You can claim a tax deduction for any amount of medical expenses that you incur for yourself or anyone else. There's no upper limit. But they do have to be genuinely incurred by you and not, e.g. paid by you for the purpose of getting the benefit of a tax deduction, but reimbursed to you by somebody else.

Plus, you can only claim medical expenses in the tax year that you paid them in (or, if you prefer, in the tax year that you incurred them in). Which means that, if you have large medical expenses incurred or paid in a particular year and you don't have a sufficient taxable income in that year to get the maximum benefit of the deduction, you can't carry forward part of the expenses and claim them as a deduction in the following year.

So far as I recall, relief is only granted at the standard rate of income tax, which is 20%. So for every €1,000 you spend, you'll get a tax reduction of €200, regardless of what your marginal rate is. Except for nursing home fees - for those you get a relief at your marginal rate of tax. I wouldn't swear to this, but I think that if, after surgery, your mother has to spend a period convalescing in a nursing home, you'd get a marginal rate deduction for that part of the expenses.

lightspeed

Wesser wrote: »

Just call the local private hospital and ask.

Probably in the region if 10 to 15 k.

Thanks I rang a few earlier today and you were right on the money. Roughly between 10 - 15k.

I found it hard to get an exact figure which is fair enough but some prices some were given were just for the surgery and then the cost of anesthetic, Consultant fee would be more.

So one gave a price of around 15K for everything and another said 12.5k but that doesnt included anesthetic, MRI etc.

Looks like it will be around 15k

GoneHome

http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/schemes/treatmentabroad/ Could this scheme be an option for your mother, it can be done in Belfast.

Gael23

I know a hip is €10k so 12 for a knee sounds right . You can get 20% of that back in tax