What Does Vitality Personal Healthcare Cover?
Inpatient and Day-Patient Treatment
Inpatient and day-patient treatment involves all medical care requiring a hospital bed. This might be overnight (inpatient) or just for the day (day-patient). This most commonly, but not exclusively, involves surgical procedures.
Outpatient Treatment
All medical care not requiring a hospital bed. Vitality does not include most outpatient care as standard — it’s an optional extra you add to the policy for an additional premium.
Outpatient Limits
You can either opt to have Vitality pay for eligible outpatient care in full or limit it to a fixed monetary amount per policy year.
However, even where you choose an outpatient limit, Vitality will still pay in full for MRI, CT and PET scans as well as physiotherapy when arranged through its Priority Physiotherapy Network.
The outpatient limits you can choose are:
- £500
- £750
- £1,000
- £1,250
- £1,500.
Should you opt to limit your outpatient cover, you can choose the Full Cover Diagnostics option. This means Vitality will still pay in full for any outpatient diagnostic tests / scans etc. you require, regardless of your outpatient limit. Only specialist consultations will come out of your outpatient limit with this option.
Cancer Care
Cancer cover is one of the most valuable elements of any Private Medical Insurance policy. It pays for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, including offering access to drugs, treatments, therapies and procedures the NHS may not yet offer due to their cost.
End of Life Care
Where your cancer isn’t curable, Vitality will pay £75 for each night spent in a hospice receiving end of life care. It will continue to pay in full for treatment required to relieve pain and other symptoms, even after a terminal diagnosis.
If your cancer cannot be cured, Vitality will also pay for a qualified nurse to provide at-home nursing care, up to a maximum of £1,000, for no more than 14 days.
Lifestyle Surgery
Recognising that obesity is a serious health condition that can lead to a range of other serious conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, Vitality pays for gastric banding or gastric bypass where clinically necessary and subject to its eligibility criteria.
To help combat the emotional distress caused to young people by conditions such as port-wine stain birth marks or prominent ears, Vitality also pays for surgery / treatment to correct these.
In all instances you or the insured dependent must have held the policy for at least 12 months and you’ll need to pay 25% of the cost of treatment upfront.
- Weight loss surgery
Pays for weight loss surgery to fit a gastric band, gastric sleeve or undertake a gastric bypass if you have a BMI or over 40 or a BMI of over 35 with co-morbid conditions such as type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea or high blood pressure.
- Port-wine stain birthmark correction
Pays for up to ten sessions of laser treatment for a child the policy covers who is under five to correct a port-wine stain birthmark on the face.
- Correction of prominent ears in children
Pays for ear reshaping surgery (pinnaplasty) to correct prominent (bat) ears in a child aged between 5 and 14.
- Breast reduction / male breast tissue removal
Pays for a female breast reduction or removal of excessive male breast tissue (gynaecomastia) for a covered individual aged under 21 with a BMI of under 27.
Additional Benefits
You get the following additional benefits free with Vitality Health Insurance:
- Private ambulance
Pays for transportation in a private ambulance should you require it.
- Home nursing
A nurse will visit your home where medically advised following eligible inpatient or day-patient treatment.
- Mental health support
Vitality offers up to eight talking therapies (e.g. counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy) as standard. You also get access to Big White Wall, an award-winning mental health service, for 24 / 7 support, and can spend reward points on mindfulness services such as a discount on the smartphone app Headspace.
- Parent accommodation
If a child your policy covers aged under 14 is having eligible private inpatient treatment under your Health Insurance, Vitality pays for accommodation for you to stay close by.
- Baby bonus
A cash benefit of £100 on the birth of a new child or the adoption of a child aged under 18.
- NHS cash benefit
If you choose to have inpatient or day-patient treatment on the NHS that you would have been eligible to have under your Health Insurance, Vitality pays £250 per night for inpatient stays up to £2,000 per year and £125 for day-patient treatment up to £500 per year.
- Oral surgery
Pays for surgical removal of impacted teeth, removal of jawbone cysts and reduction in facial and reducing mandibular fractures after an accident.
- Rehabilitation
Offers up to 21 days of rehabilitation treatment following a stroke or serious brain injury after a period of eligible inpatient treatment providing it is within 2 months of initial diagnosis.
Hospital List
Your hospital list impacts which facilities you get private healthcare in and also how much your premiums will be. Some hospitals are more expensive than others, so opting for access to a wider array of private facilities increases premiums.
Vitality has three tiers of hospital lists:
- Local
- Countrywide
- London Care.
Note that to access private face-to-face GP appointments, you’ll need to choose the most expensive London Care option.
Read Vitality’s hospital list in full here.
Medical Underwriting Options
When you apply for Health Insurance as an individual, you choose how you want your insurer to underwrite you.
Vitality has two medical underwriting options:
- Full medical underwriting
You disclose your medical history when you take out the policy
- Moratorium underwriting
Vitality won’t ask for any medical details until you submit a claim.
These are two very different options which can impact the way your insurer decides on exclusions for any pre-existing conditions you may have. The best underwriting for you depends on your circumstances.
Read more about the difference between full medical underwriting and moratorium underwriting here.
You can also switch to Vitality Personal Healthcare from another provider on continued underwriting terms on a continued personal medical exclusions basis.
