Essential Ambulance cover

Medicare doesn't cover the cost of emergency transport and other ambulance services. 

Depending on where you live, without ambulance cover you may need pay over $1,000 for an ambulance in an emergency situation.^*

Depending on your state or territory of residence, you’ll need to take out ambulance cover to help cover the cost of ambulance transport.

If you are a resident of Queensland and Tasmania, ambulance services may be covered through your state’s own subsidised ambulance scheme.

For more information on how ambulance cover works in each state and territory, please visit privatehealth.gov.au.

No, Medicare doesn't cover the cost of emergency transport and other ambulance services in any Australian state or territory^*.

There is a 7-day waiting period before you can claim on HBF Essential Ambulance.

'Urgent' and 'non-urgent' are two terms used to indicate how quickly you need an ambulance.

When you call for an ambulance, the operator will use the information you provide to figure out how fast the ambulance needs to get to you. Based on this information, you will be assigned as priority 1 (emergency call), priority 2 (urgent call) or priority 3 (non-urgent call).

HBF Essential Ambulance will cover you for emergency and urgent ambulance transport by road up to two services per year. It will not cover non-urgent ambulance services, or ambulance transfers between your home and hospital.

That's where HBF Ambulance Care steps in — it covers non-urgent ambulance services, as well as transfers.

Yes. No matter where you are in Australia, HBF will fully cover the cost of any on-site emergency ambulance treatment and medically necessary ambulance transport by road to a hospital emergency department where provided by an approved HBF provider.

With HBF Essential Ambulance, you’ll be fully covered up to annual limits for ambulance transport by road or on-site treatment, for circumstances classified as emergency or urgent provided by an HBF approved provider.

The most common urgent ambulance service is a call-out that requires transport to the nearest hospital emergency department. Emergency or urgent treatment by paramedics at the scene, such as resuscitation, are also considered an urgent ambulance service and may therefore be eligible for benefit under your cover.

HBF won’t pay a benefit for:

• Situations where the service is not classified as emergency or urgent and you are not transported to an emergency department, including transport to medical appointments.
• Any transport not provided in an ambulance by road, including air or water ambulance services.
• Situations where the benefit or cost is subsidised by a state scheme or is payable by a third party, including inter-hospital transfers.
• Any transport between public hospitals.