Waiting Periods

When you take out private health insurance in the form of Hospital cover or Extras cover, or upgrade your existing cover, you may have to wait a period of time before you can claim for some services and benefits you weren't previously covered for.

Benefits may vary according to your level of cover. To determine which waiting periods apply for your level of cover, please refer to your policy document which you can download and save for future reference.

If you switch from another private health insurer

Transferring from another private health insurer is simple and we’ll recognise any comparable waiting periods you’ve served with another insurer. The good news is that as there are no 2 or 6 month waiting periods on any of ahm’s extras covers you’ll be able to start claiming straight away on many benefits, even if you were still serving waiting periods with your previous insurer.

Waiting period changes to our Extras covers

The good news is that there are no longer 2 or 6 month waiting periods on any of ahm’s Extras covers so you’ll be able to start claiming straight away on many benefits including routine dental, optical (excluding laser eye surgery where covered), physio, chiro, osteo, complementary and alternative therapies including naturopathy and remedial massage.

If you are joining ahm and haven't had continuous hospital or extras cover

You have to serve the following health insurance waiting periods:

Waiting Periods
1 day
  • Ambulance services
  • Hospital treatment required as a result of an accident
  • Travel and accommodation relating to a hospitalisation
  • Disease prevention and chronic disease management programs
2 months
  • Hospital treatment (where there's no pre-existing conditions)
  • Rehabilitation, psychiatric and palliative care (regardless of whether pre-existing)
  • Travel and accommodation relating to specialist medical services
  • Hospital substitute services (except pre-existing conditions or pregnancy related)
12 months
  • Pre-existing conditions
  • Obstetrics, pregnancy, IVF and birth related conditions in a public or private hospital (including hospital substitute services)
  • Pre- and post natal services
  • Disease management appliances
  • Complex  and major dental services including orthodontics
  • Podiatric surgery, orthotics and orthopaedic shoes, hearing aids, medical gases and joint fluid replacement injections
3 years
  • Refractive sight correcting laser eye surgery (you need to have held either Super or Lifestyle Extras for 3 years before you are entitled to this benefit)

 

If you upgrade your ahm health insurance cover

You will need to serve the waiting periods outlined above. Your existing health insurance cover applies until waiting periods are completed.

If you have a health insurance query, please contact us.