- If you’re hospitalised, you’ll be staying in either a private or public hospital ward – which, like hotels, charges you for every night you stay, the services you use, and a bunch of miscellaneous fees. If you’re in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) wards? It’s so much more expensive right? Most Integrated Shield Plans (IP plans) will cover ICU stays too.
- Before you are discharged from the hospital, if your attending doctor at the hospital refers you to be transferred to a community hospital for further medical treatments and care, your community hospital stay can be filed for claims with your Integrated Shield Plan.
- If you were hospitalised and you receive psychiatric treatments during your hospitalisation stay, the expenses incurred from these inpatient psychiatric treatments can be filed for claims – usually subject to a fixed coverage limit, e.g. only S$500 per day for 35 days in a year if you have an Aviva MyShield Plan 3.
- If your doctor tells you that you will need to be hospitalised to go under the knife for a surgery, ask your doctor if the surgery is in the Ministry of Health’s Table of Surgical Procedures 1A to 7C. If it is, then rest assure your surgery, surgical implants, including Gamma Knife radiosurgery, will be eligible for claims under your Integrated Shield Plan. If you have a day surgery, however, you will need to check if your health insurance plan covers day surgeries – and any terms and conditions that may limit your day surgery coverage limit.
- So, generally you need to first be hospitalised to be even eligible for any claims from your Integrated Shield Plan (IP plan). However, the IP plan also covers outpatient long-term illnesses’ treatments that you don’t usually get hospitalised for – such as kidney dialysis erythropoietin, cancer radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and stereotactic radiotherapy. Other claimable outpatient treatments include immunosuppressants for organ transplant patients, and long-term parenteral nutrition (what you may know as tube feeding).
- You must have heard of this term: pre- and post-hospitalisation. If your hospitalisation stay and the treatments you received during your stay have all been approved by your insurance company for claims, then you can start filing your pre-hospitalisation treatments for claims. That means, if you have been visiting the doctor for the same illness even before you were hospitalised, you can submit the receipts for claims within 180 days (or lesser, depends on your plan).
- When you’re about to be discharged from the hospital, chances are your doctor will ask you to schedule another appointment for follow-up treatments. While you may most likely come back to the same hospital, some doctors may refer you to other medical centres, clinics, or even Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinics for post-hospitalisation treatments. If your plan allows, and your doctor referred you to an insurance-approved clinic, you will be able to claim these treatments’ bills.
- If you are receiving or donating one of your major organs in a hospital that’s recognised by your insurance company, you will be able to claim part or the full sum of your transplant medical expenses – depends on the coverage limit for organ transplants that's stated in your policy contract. Aviva MyShield for instance, offers you full aka "As Charged" coverage for major organ transplants of the heart, liver, lung, skin, cornea etc.
- If you are a female with an IP plan, some insurance companies do allow you to make claims if you were to run into pregnancy or delivery complications – not all, just some complications. The type of pregnancy complications you can claim for differs from insurance company to company – some may offer none, some may offer 6 conditions, while some offer up to 36 pregnancy-related complications.
- If you were to be diagnosed with and treated for congenital abnormalities, you may be able claim these medical treatment expenses up to the coverage limit listed in your policy (for e.g. full aka "As Charged" coverage if you hold the Aviva MyShield plan and you ran into congenital abnormalities-related conditions while you were hospitalised).