Treatment through private medical insurance

To claim using your private medical insurance, you will most likely need a referral from your GP or other health professional. In some instances it is possible to self-refer such as when requesting physiotherapy – check with your insurer. Ask your GP to refer you to Benenden Hospital.

Before you attend hospital for consultation or diagnostic tests, it’s essential that you get authorisation from your insurance company. Request Benenden Hospital if asked what hospital you would like to attend.

So, before your first appointment, you should contact them to check the following:

• Is your condition covered?
• Ensure that at each stage of your treatment you are covered by the insurer
• Are you covered for the planned treatment at Benenden Hospital, including your first out-patient appointment?
• Does your insurance company recognise the consultant you have chosen?
• Is there an excess payable on your policy?

Once you have your referral from your GP, and have contacted your insurance company for authorisation, you can call our Private Patient Team on 01580 363158 who'll give you all the information you need about the available treatments, Consultants and booking details. If you're given a pre-authorisation reference please pass it on to the team.

Before admission, we’ll write to you asking for the following details:

• Your claim form, if your claim form is already with your consultant, GP or insurance company, just let us know
• The name of your insurer
• Your membership or policy number
• Confirmation of eligibility such as a pre-authorisation or claim number (some insurers give a different reference to the treatment, and authorisation of a consultation does not necessarily mean that they have authorised the treatment that results)
• Any excess applying to your policy (most insurers will ask you to pay that direct to us).

Please bring these details to your first appointment. It’s vital that we have this information before admission because insurers may refuse to make a payment they haven’t pre-authorised. In that case, you’d be liable for the entire bill.