In these current times value for money is very important and this applies to health care as much as anything else. But according to the Daily Mail private healthcare establishments may be billing health insurance clients up to 50% more than their private clients.

Taking out private health insurance with Freedom Healthnet Ltd ensures that you are protected from this kind of unfairness because Freedom pays the cash direct to you and you approach hospitals as an independent private patient.

On the 2nd May the Daily Mail reported that a client received a bill from the Nuffield Hospital in Chichester where an MRI scan was charged at £477. Three weeks later another bill arrived for the same MRI scan for £720. The patient was asked to ignore the previous bill 'as we were unaware patient was insured.' This enormous 50% increase was drawn to the attention of the patient's insurer Western Provident Association (WPA).

Julian Stainton chief executive of WPA said,

'It beggars belief that in these times when the public demand openness, one of this country's leading charities is taking advantage of patients at their most vulnerable, charging insured patients in excess of 50% more than self-pay patients.

It is nothing more than bedside robbery for a private hospital to charge on the basis of "how much can we get away with?"'

Anthony Scrivener QC, an authority on consumer law said 'The provider is not entitled to demand to know whether you have medical insurance. It is entitled to be sure that you have the resources to pay for the treatment - usually making a credit card available will suffice.

In law every patient is a self-pay patient, irrespective of their ability to recover charges from a relative or an insurance company.'

For Freedom Healthnet clients this is not an issue. If you become ill Freedom pays the money for your inpatient treatment straight into your bank account and you have the choice to do exactly what you want with it. You can approach your preferred medical establishment and ask for discounts for your healthcare treatments as an individual private patient and then keep the change to spend on other things. Alternatively you can go abroad to be looked after or even go via the NHS and keep the cash for yourself. The choice is yours.

So, with Freedom you have the wonderful security of a private health insurance plan but you save money on two fronts:

-you get cheap health insurance because Freedom Healthnet Ltd pass on their reduced admin costs to you
- you are in control of the money you get and can therefore get better deals from the private health care providers.