Laya Public bed charges - I tried to cancel but its a nightmare.

This has me flummoxed and I have no knowledge of how the system operates.

A person gets taken to A&E friday/sat night at 12pm, left on trolley in agony and then approached at 5.19am saturday morning told they would get a bed if form was signed, so signed. NB they were not given a copy of form. They were never in hospital in their life and had no sleep since thursday 8am.

At 8am saturday trolley is moved to ward and left outside a 2 bed room, you can see in, and it has 2 patients with screen dividers. Person is then told at 11am there is no bed available.

The trolley is horrendous an unbelievable thin mattress and person has severe stomach pain, that is aggravated by movement. Person 2 intervenes and goes back to A&E asking for sight of form and seeking to address the person who presented form. Told they were off duty. Requested a copy of said form and told it was not available.!! Person 2 says they want to cancel said form and stay public and request a better trolley. Another trolley is provided a bit better but not much. Person 2 then signed an in patient form on behalf of Person 1. Does this rescind the Private in patient form? Laya are not available as its a sunday and bank holiday. A few hours later a bed was provided in a 5 person ward.
There is a sentence in this Private insurance form that I find scary. It reads.
"Please be aware that if you are subject to any waiting periods/pre-existing conditions or if you do not have sufficient insurance cover you will be liable for the full cost of your hospital stay(as per the charges noted above) and treatment by a private consultant.

This seems to mean if your insurer cant bear the full cost then the patient is billed for the lot!! And this is for an A&E admission.

help

There are a couple of topics here (sorry I am only posting link to a post rather than the full topic but am on a mobile, but read the full topics.

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/posts/1519587/

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/posts/1508888/

I would think you are still in the hospital so tomorrow when all staff are on tell admissions you want to retract what you signed as you were too sick to understand what you were signing. Then call laya and tell them the same. Let us know how you get on.

Thank you ever so much for the links. I am disappointed with myself as I do read a bit of news but to be honest even on reading the links it would have passed me by as I was fit and healthy. I also took it as isolated , as what kind of person would approach a sick individual and do such a thing. I was wrong.

There is an update to this saga, the bed that was allocated eventually has been idle for a week!! Now here's the bit that I find very very spooky. Laya do a big splash about these charges and then close their offices at weekends!! These are the hours:
Monday to Friday 8.00am - 7.00pm
Saturday 10.00am - 3.30pm
Sunday, Bank Holidays Closed

And of course it is weekends that most admittances occur. The example they quote is a 3 night stay, say sat/sun/mon = closed saturday early and so on. The 3 nights private cost €2439 per person as opposed to €240 and they cant be bothered manning the phones, give me a break.

Person 1 has been subsequently asked why did you sign? And the reply, I was in so much pain I would have signed ANYTHING. exact words.

The insurance companies could kill this in one swoop by insisting the signature had to be witnessed by a family member during the hours 9-5pm and only after they had spoken to their insurer.

I will report back.

What a horrible country we have.

It really is very disturbing.
Here I am today mulling over which plan to choose with Laya Healthcare for the coming year. I have read all the threads on health insurance and got great advice from snowyb as usual. I have compared and looked at each plan and today I have narrowed it down to one. I will phone later and renew.
However reading the above post by NOAH is very upsetting. If either myself or my wife end up in an emergency situation this year and have to go to hospital I know that we are going to end up on a trolley outside a public ward. We could be on that trolley for days.
No health insurance plan is going to get me a private room or semi private room because there won't be one available to me.

My health insurer will be charged a small fortune by the hospital for my stay on a trolley. I will have told the nice lady who admitted me and signed the form to say that I have private health insurance. I will not be treated any differently than someone who does not have health insurance.

It could be down to timing. The person who has no health insurance might get a bed if it becomes available. I might be looking at him in a bed from my trolley in the corridor. I don't begrudge him the bed. I just wonder if it is all a racket.

I think it is fair to say that having Private Health Insurance (PHI) in this country is pretty pointless in the event of a medical emergency. If you need to go to hospital urgently, you go to A&E and get put on a trolley until a bed becomes available. It is a sad and terrible indictment on our medical system in 2017 but it is the reality. You will be treated exactly the same whether you have private insurance or are a public patient.

The first difference occurs between the private and public patient arises after the initial emergency phase and if a longer stay in hospital is required and then you might get a private/semi-private room depending on a) your plan and b) availability in the hospital. You can be on the best plan in the world and still not get a private room if they are all full!

The second difference is where you present with symptoms to your GP who then refers you along the medical chain. Here PHI will allow you to 'skip the queue' of public patients and get seen and treated far quicker. This of course is the principal benefit of health insurance and why, if you can afford it, PHI has a 'value'. Other ancillary benefits of GP/Consultant refunds etc. are somewhat irrelevant as a differentiator between public and private (but useful nonetheless) as the majority of public patients (I think) are likely have a Medical Card and are on a freebie anyway.