How much a 4D3N "staycation" in a hospital cost us?

A stomach pain turned emergency appenticitis surgery.

This is my 2nd experience as a parent experiencing my children being hospitalised. One being my eldest child who at 20 months old, was hopitalised at KKH for 4 days for bronchitis and last year, 2nd child's emergency appendicitis surgery.

My 2nd child who was 11 last year, was complaining of stomach pain in the morning, thinking it could be just gastric pain, we brought him to CGH A&E. The medical staff didn't managed to diagnose him with appendicitis and he was issued with just pain killers. However, by evening time, his pain didn't subside and he was even in more intense pain. At this point, we quickly brought him to KKH and he was diagnosed to have appendicitis and was scheduled for an emergency surgery the next day morning. I can't imagine what could have happen if we decided to just give him pain killers, just the thought of him bearing the intense pain not knowing what was wrong just sent shivers down my spine.

Lucky enough, his appendix didn't burst from inflammation and he was able to proceed to have the key hole surgery. Though it was not a life threatening surgery, having witnessed the pain and anxiety that my child went through is not easy as a parent. I remembered being in the operation theatre and my son holding on to my hand tightly before he fell into deep sleep...and boy, was I emotional. I can't imagine parents who have to deal with their emotions if their child is diagnosed with more serious medical conditions. Throughout the whole hospitalisation, medical cost was also the last thing on my mind as we only want our child to recover and be healthy as soon as possible.

THANK GOODNESS WE GOT IT COVERED

A reason why at that point, medical cost was the last on my mind was because I knew we had gotten a comprehensive hospitalisation plan for him since birth and in fact for all of us in the family. I knew the hospitalisation bill will be fully covered. It was only after discharge and when the hospital bill came that I realised for a 4 days stay in a Class A ward, it would cost us nearly $9k. And for the first time, i realised how small an amount Medishield is made payable.

Below is an extract of the insurer's settlement letter of my son's hospitalisation.

The total medical bill came up to be $8,751.83. The deductible amount of $3,500 and 10% co-insurance amount of $525.18 were fully covered by the Integrated Shield rider. The remaining hospital bill of $4,726.65 is fully covered by Medisave amount and the main Integrated Shield plan. Imagine if we didn't get any integrated shield plan for my son, we would have to fork out $8,376.38!

We were fortunate that we have gotten the comprehensive hospitalisation plan before 2018 which was before the new co-pay ruling was put in place. Read about the new changes here But we know as a matter of fact that medical cost has been increasing and with medical inflation hitting at 10%, this is also the very reason why we need to get hospitalisation insurance as our very first step in financial planning. Besides giving you a peace of mind that you are covered in the event of hospitalisation or surgery, we also truly wouldn't know when do we ever need to activate that coverage.

Below is my son right after the surgery. Upon hearing the surgery went well, I was heaving a huge sigh of relief. Having a peace of mind at that point is so important.

FINANCIAL PLANNING IS ALWAYS WORK IN PROGRESS

Financial Planning is always work in progress because of our needs, lifestyle or life stage changes but most importantly insurance needs don't change regardless of economic, social, environmental or political changes, so don't get caught not having it when you need it the most.

Opinion(s) expressed are solely in my personal capacity and do not express the views or opinions of Prudential and does not represent any professional advice in the capacity as a PACS representative.

296/02Jun21

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