Don’t wait: 3 kids hospital procedures to get covered for

To help you prepare for whatever might come your way, we’ve run our numbers and found some of the most common hospital claims for children under 10 years old.

Get your family covered for these procedures and you’ll help ensure your children don’t wait longer than they need to.

1. Removal of Tonsils

Tonsillectomy is one of the more common kids’ surgical procedures in Western Australia.

Symptoms of infected tonsils, or tonsillitis, include sore throat, fever, disturbed sleep, and a vulnerability to other infections¹. So when a child’s tonsils get irritated, they can literally become a pain in the neck.

If these symptoms get bad enough, or cause complications, your doctor may recommend surgical removal.

At that point, you’ll want your child taken care of as soon as possible. A child who can’t sleep due to tonsil pain and difficulty breathing can become exhausted. This could lead to poor performance in school, general fussiness, and a rough time for parents.

Unfortunately, tonsillectomy has an average wait time of 125 days in the national public hospital system², so it helps if you can use private health insurance to avoid the public wait list.

The good news is that all HBF hospital covers include coverage for tonsillectomy.

As an added bonus, on all hospital insurance covers currently available, HBF offers no excess for your dependants when they are admitted to hospital for treatment and are covered under a family or single parent policy.

2. Surgery for ear infections

You probably know at least one parent who’s got an ear infection story. And they might have told you about their child’s struggle with poor sleep, headaches, fever, loss of balance and trouble hearing³.

These are all common symptoms of an ear infection. If they get bad enough, it can mean a trip to the hospital.

If your child isn’t seen quickly, those hearing difficulties could lead to speech problems⁴. If a child can’t hear while they’re learning to speak, they might require speech therapy later on.

Surgery for ear infections usually involves one of two standard procedures. A myringotomy is a small incision to the ear that lets fluids and pressure drain out. This may be followed by grommet surgery, where a small tube is inserted into the incision so that it can drain for longer.

It’s worth noting that the public hospital wait time for a myringotomy can be potentially over 60 days² so it’s worth considering private health cover.

Cover for myringotomy and grommet surgery is included in every level of HBF hospital cover currently available for sale.