Choosing a hospital

Public or private?

When you have hospital cover, you can choose to be treated as:

• A private patient in a private hospital*
• A private patient in a public hospital*
• A public patient in a public hospital.

Your choice may have an impact on your out-of-pocket costs and experience. For example, as a public patient in a public hospital you can’t choose your own doctor (you will be appointed one) and may be subject to waiting lists depending on the treatment you need, but shouldn’t have any out-of-pocket costs. As a private patient in a private hospital you can choose your own doctor – as long as they do procedures at your chosen hospital – and can have your treatment as soon as you and your doctor are ready.

Read more: Comparing public and private hospitals

Is it a Medibank Members’ Choice hospital? 

If you’re a Medibank member with hospital cover and have decided to be treated as a private patient in a private hospital we strongly recommend choosing a Members’ Choice hospital. 

Medibank has arrangements with most private hospitals and day surgeries in Australia, so you can generally get better value than if you were to go to a non-Members’ Choice hospital. 

If you have already decided on a specialist, ask them which hospitals they work in. You can check if they work in a Members’ Choice hospital by using our Find a provider tool. 

Hospital reviews

Hospitals have reviews, just like hotels. Once you’ve decided whether to go public or private you can start to research which hospital you’d like to go to. The Australian Government’s My Hospitals website allows you to search and compare hospitals on a range of measures. Medibank has also put together our own Hospital Experience Scores where we’ve rated private hospitals based on our members’ feedback.  

Find a Members’ Choice hospital

Take the guesswork out of choosing a hospital. Use our Find a Provider tool.

Want to know the cost of more than 40 common procedures? 

As a baseline, you can use our Procedure cost estimator to compare the typical cost of over 40 common procedures like hip and knee replacements, ACL repair, and many more.