Private hospital insurance: what is private hospital insurance?
Hospital insurance offers you more comfort and benefits than basic insurance when staying in a hospital. What exactly does private hospital insurance include, and how much does it cost? Comparis gives you an overview.
29.08.2022
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1. What is private insurance?
Private insurance refers to hospital insurance provided by health insurance companies. This gives you greater comfort and more benefits for in-patient care than with semi-private insurance. Policyholders of private insurance usually get a single hospital room.
2. What benefits do I get from private hospital insurance?
The exact benefits of private hospital insurance depend on your health insurer. Private insurance policyholders are usually entitled to:
costs of a single room
free choice of hospital doctor
second medical opinion
treatment by a chief physician
(partial) coverage of costs abroad
additional hotel-style services such as à la carte meals, welcome gifts, pick-up, transfer, guest services
additional benefits such as spa treatments, emergency and transfer transportation, household help and home care
3. Private hospital insurance: what advantages does it offer?
The following are the pros and cons of private hospital insurance compared with the general ward covered by basic insurance:
Benefits of private insurance:
free choice of hospital doctor if possible (not always possible in emergencies)
free choice of hospital throughout Switzerland, in some cases also abroad: a collective agreement with the health insurance company is a prerequisite for this
treatment by the chief physician
say in setting dates for elective procedures
greater comfort (e.g. single room, à la carte food)
Disadvantages of private hospital insurance:
higher premiums than for basic or semi-private insurance
free choice of doctor not possible in some cases (in emergencies)
choice of hospital partially limited
no guarantee of a single room (such as when they are all occupied)
two-tier medical treatment is prohibited: where medically necessary, the head physician will also treat patients in the general ward
Trends in supplemental hospital insurance
Surgeries are increasingly performed on an outpatient rather than inpatient basis. In case of treatment, you will not spend the night in hospital.
In addition, differences in comfort between departments have become smaller. Flex models therefore perform better in terms of price-performance ratio than semi-private or private hospital insurance.
4. How much does private hospital insurance cost?
The premiums for private hospital insurance depend to a large extent on the following factors:
Gender
Age
Chosen deductible
Canton of residence
Health insurer
The monthly premium of a 42-year-old man from the city of Basel is between 97 and 219 francs. Compare supplemental insurance for an exact cost estimate.
