Last night, Channel Nine's "A Current Affair" program ran a story about the Hills Parenting Centre in Sydney, alleging that major health funds, (Medibank Private, MBF and HCF) are refusing to pay claims for procedures conducted at the centre.
In commenting to "A Current Affair", Medibank advised that, like the other funds, we needed to clarify whether the procedures in question are able to be paid under our fund rules.
Following is the statement that Medibank Private sent to "A Current Affair".
Media Statement for A Current Affair
Re: Hills Parenting Centre
Medibank Private is currently seeking further advice from external medical advisers on decisions we made regarding eight (8) claims we received from the Hills Parenting Centre.
We originally made a decision not to pay benefits for these claims based on our interpretation of Commonwealth regulations that govern admissions, which form the basis of these claims. Naturally, we are concerned that the decision we’ve made regarding benefits for our members is accurate and fair in respect to these regulations.
For these reasons, our external medical advisers are currently re-examining each individual claim.
We are an industry leader in the level of benefits we pay out to our members. Last financial year alone we paid back nearly 98% of our contributions as benefits to members. We’ve worked hard to reduce our management expenses so we can deliver better value to members.
We will advise the affected members and the Centre of the outcome of this re-examination as soon as it’s available.