{"id":916522,"date":"2026-10-01T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/916522\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:32:11","slug":"what-is-a-high-tech-hospital-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/916522\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a high-tech hospital? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 I read with a lot of sympathy Julian McCormick\u2019s letter (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/letters\/2026\/09\/28\/letters-to-the-editor-september-28th-high-cost-of-health-insurance-gaza-and-driven-to-distraction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/letters\/2026\/09\/28\/letters-to-the-editor-september-28th-high-cost-of-health-insurance-gaza-and-driven-to-distraction\/\">Letters<\/a>, September 28th). To call the way health insurers operate obfuscation is quite generous. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Being currently in the process of renewing my own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-insurance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-insurance\">health insurance<\/a>, it is a nightmare. What is particularly galling is the so-called \u201cHigh-Tech Hospitals\u201d access, which requires a significantly higher premium. As with many other patients, it is difficult when one attends a consultant only to find out that they only work in a private hospital not covered by your plan, despite the fact that you are having a relatively simple procedure carried out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Surely it makes no difference where non-high-tech procedures are carried out, as the cost should not differ? <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">I do not understand what a high-tech hospital actually means. The concept of a high-tech procedure is obviously straightforward and would include such procedures as spinal surgery and cardiac surgery. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It seems ridiculous that a hospital is designated as high-tech but carries out simple procedures that are not covered by a lower plan. Surely a copay for a high-tech procedure would be accepted by most people, but to designate a hospital as such seems at best ridiculous. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The fact that even day case procedures are not covered in high-tech hospitals on a lower plan is even more egregious due to the lack of necessity for any high-tech requirements. Perhaps someday the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-insurance-authority\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/health-insurance-authority\">Health Insurance Authority<\/a> will actually regulate the healthcare insurance industry. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">PETER O\u2019ROURKE FRCS,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Retired consultant orthopaedic surgeon,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ramelton, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Co Donegal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 I read with a lot of sympathy Julian McCormick\u2019s letter (Letters, September 28th). To call the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,8542,145482,392],"class_list":["post-916522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-health-insurance","tag-health-insurance-authority","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}