{"id":636719,"date":"2026-09-26T14:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T14:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/636719\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T14:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T14:18:16","slug":"quite-significant-reduction-in-procedures-covered-by-health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/636719\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Quite significant&#8217; reduction in procedures covered by health insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of Ireland\u2019s leading experts in healthcare has warned people that insurance companies are cutting the number of procedures that their customers are entitled to.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Customers have become accustomed to inflation busting increases in the cost of their coverage in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Dermot Goode of Health Insurance Ireland warned they must now expect the number of procedures they are covered could be reduced as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody now is expecting the price increases, which were just announced in the last few weeks,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/shows\/the-claire-byrne-show-2228535\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Claire Byrne Show<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBear in mind, the peak renewal period now is just upon us; half the entire market is going to review or renew their cover between November and the end of February.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, those renewal notices are going out now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While the price increases are significant, Mr Goode described the benefit reductions as \u201cquite significant\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParticularly for anybody who wants to keep full cover for things like hip replacements and knee and shoulder replacements and even eye procedures like cataract removal,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, a lot of older members who are worried about those procedures, they have been paying extra premium to have that full cover.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;re now going to pay more premium and now they&#8217;re shocked when they realise they don&#8217;t even have those benefits anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat&#8217;s the real wake-up call for everybody now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr Good urged people to \u201cread the fine print\u201d so they do not potentially miss out on cover for procedures they expect they might need.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are now going to have to shop around to try and find an equivalent plan,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd unfortunately, the reality is, if that plan today is \u20ac2,564, if they want to retain similar benefits to what they currently have, they&#8217;re going to have to pay close to three, between \u20ac3,000 and \u20ac3,500 to basically keep the cover that they have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Main image: A doctor and a patient. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Ireland\u2019s leading experts in healthcare has warned people that insurance companies are cutting the number of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-636719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}