BUPA in HK - pay upfront for delivery or pre-authorized?

D

DonnaDE

Registered User
Hi all,

I'm moving to HK soon and will be 4 months pregnant when I arrive. My employer provides my healthcare through BUPA, and maternity is covered, but was wondering if I will have to pay the costs upfront myself then claim them back?

As I hope to get an OB-GYN through a private hospital, I'm sure the delivery itself could be quite costly. I just want to know if I will have to budget for this, or whether BUPA will arrange the costs before the delivery.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thanks xx
 
We have BUPA and while I have not used it for maternity, I have used it for two different hospitalisations. In both cases, I gave the hospital my BUPA card and paid absolutely nothing. In the case of my daughter's hospitalisation, we did have some excess charges that BUPA didn't cover but BUPA paid them first and then claimed them back from us. I assume with maternity, it would be similar.
 
We reached out to Pacific Prime here in Hong Kong for their advice:

Bupa International currently does not have any direct settlement for outpatient claims in HK. This also includes trips to your obstetrician and things like scans. So, unfortunately, you will need to pay up front and then claim back the costs. Please remember to take the claims form with you to the doctor and get it filled in when you have the appointment, as this will make life easier. You can however, get a few claims together and submit in one go under one claims form if that also makes things easier for you. Additionally, Bupa International members have access to quite a good website to accomodate claims submission so you can do it electronically and you do not need to send in the originals.

For inpatient claims (i.e. going to hospital for the delivery) Bupa will normally pay the hospital directly (this is how most insurers work). About 2 months before the delivery date you need to contact the insurer and fill in a ‘Treatment Guarantee’ form. This just gives the insurer all the details of the inpatient treatment, dates, costs etc. Bupa will then contact the hospital and confirm the coverage limits under your policy, so if the maternity coverage is full you do not need to pay anything. If there is a cap or limit on the policy then the cover will be up to this limit and you will have to settle the difference with the hospital directly.
Click to expand...
We hope that helps.
 
We have Bupa Gold (the basic coverage).Pacific Prime covered it pretty well.

As they state that "Bupa will normally pay the hospital..." this only applies for non maternity claims under our plan.

It is stated in our handbook that maternity claims (inpatient hospital and clinical exams) can not be settled with the gold card. The patient will need to first pay out of pocket and submit the claim within 90 days and Bupa will reimburse within 10 days.

You may want to double check with HR to see if they can send you the scheme handbook which will provide the details for your plan. Good luck!
 
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