May
13

Making A Life Insurance Claim

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To make a claim you first need to call up the life insurance company and tell them about your case. While doing so you will need to have some basic information handy. These are the life insurance policy number or numbers, full name of the policy holder / holders if there is more than one, full name of the person whose life has been insured, type of claim like critical illness, specific cause of claim (like illness, car accident), details of the claimant like beneficiary, estate owner etc if it not the policy owner or the insured person, and name and address to be used for correspondence by the life insurance company. If there are any other details you can provide about the condition that lead you to make the claim like date of diagnosis if it’s an illness or the date of accident etc. that too would be helpful.

The claim consultant of the company will then send the relevant claim form which you need to complete and return. According to the type and clause of claim the claim form varies. This also makes it easier for the company to asses the claim and for the beneficiary to complete the information required in the form. Depending on the type of claim there may be instances where the treating medical practitioner will have to fill certain sections.

The claim consultant of the life insurance company like www.apra.gov.au reviews the form and will request additional information like the report of the treating specialist or for a medical examination by an independent body.

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May
13

Which Life Insurance Company Should You Take A Policy From?

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The insurance sector in Australia being a very sound and established one, there are numerous major companies involved. Choosing one particular life insurance company like www.apra.gov.au can be difficult but consider the benefits you get because of such competitive environment and you will understand that you are actually fortunate.

Almost all the insurance companies provide a competitive package of premium and benefits to their customers to suit the requirements in the different stages of ones life. And that is why no one company can be described as the best www.apra.gov.au. Of course one company offers a better rate of premium and the other offers a better coverage facility. So depending on the factors that matter to you like age or a pre-existing condition or a high-risk occupation you can take an appropriate cover. If this seems confusing to you, you can take the help of a insurance adviser who will explain to you the different types of life insurance coverage, premiums to be paid for each and how you should calculate the type of cover you need. The life insurance policies can even be tailored to one’s specific needs and so it would not be difficult to choose the right company as almost all insurance companies provide flexible options.

Some of the top Australian life insurance companies are Aviva, BT, Macquarie, MLC, Asteron etc. Many of these companies have won awards in different categories. Furthermore these life insurance companies are rated for its customer service and innovativeness in the policies by an independent organization.

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May
06

Snakes alive! It’s back to the bush for me

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Dr Patrick O'Sullivan, rural locum based in Hobart

“So, what can I do for you today?” It was a fairly typical opening question to get the feel for the consultation. “Hurt my back doc,” came the reply. Then silence. No two minutes of his narrative tumbling out; but then, of course, I’m doing another short rural locum one hour south of Hobart. No frills here.

“So, did anything happen to cause the pain?” I asked. “Tried to kill a snake doc; it got away.” Definitely in the bush again where you never know what might come through the door.

Having moved to Hobart in 2010 for family and sailing reasons, I had spent a very enjoyable three months doing locums in various small towns in rural NSW in the winter of 2011. The locums were all organised with minimal fuss, and all I had to do was show up and work. The accommodation was good, all the staff and patients made me feel very welcome, and I thoroughly enjoyed the work in the GP surgeries and as the VMO at the local small hospitals. The pay was good, too!

During the summer I worked at the Hobart surgery which is very pleasant, and does the usual city style GP work. However, I realised that all the days seemed to meld one into the other and I wasn’t getting a “kick” out of my job and I found that my wife and I spent a lot of time reminiscing about our three months doing locums. It seemed such a long time, whereas the last six months have just flown by with no obvious excitement. I was missing something.

Hence, I’ve started doing some short-term locums again and feel that “something” has returned. I’ve also organised a locum for the month of July in Kakadu; three weeks work in an area of need, and then a week to explore that wonderful region. It might just be a little warmer than Hobart too, and I’ve always wanted to catch a barramundi. Will keep you posted.

Then we’re off to an Island in the Tasman Sea as the sole GP for August and September. No obstetrics or anaesthetics but certainly will be a challenge. The clincher for me was that I also got to drive the ambulance to work every day; unfortunately the speed limit is 25kmh. Not sure how many police there though! Can you guess the name of the island?

By the way, the snake still lives but the patient’s back pain has settled.

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Apr
02

Savour the wine, taste the lifestyle

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Dr Pieter Mourik, Albury Wodonga

Before you start reading this, I want you to go and get a nice glass of wine; an Australian wine, of course. Either a red, a white, or the new rage, a chilled fortified port or muscat. I will wait until you return…

Oh, I approve, a nice, north east Durif, my favourite!

This month, I want to talk about another definite benefit of rural life; all the significant wine regions in Australia are in the country. What better reason to choose to live and work beyond the cities?

As rural residents, we are very privileged to have world-class wines at our doorsteps. I live in the north east of Victoria where the wineries are fabulous. There are family vineyards that go back up to 7 generations. The names of these famous winemakers include Brown Brothers of Milawa, Campbell’s, Morris and Stanton and Killeen in Rutherglen…just to mention a few.

It’s not surprsising that a local sign proclaims: “Sydney has a great harbour but Rutherglen has a great port!” The reputation for fortified wines from Rutherglen is internationally known. Last year, a fortified muscat won the best wine in the London Wine Show. Imagine
accessing that kind of quality right on your doorstep.

The other attraction is the concept of wine and food matching which started in our area in Milawa at the Brown Brothers Epicurean centre 25 years ago. Living in the country we think nothing of driving from Wodonga to Milawa to enjoy a gourmet lunch with our friends who come up from Melbourne and while in the town, buy local cheeses from the Cheese Factory and locally grown and made mustard from the mustard shop. These gourmet delights are in our backyard!

Many of our holidays are to the other wine regions of Australia: the Hunter Valley, Margaret River, Coonawarra, Freycinet and Barossa Valley. The standard of wineries, accommodation, food and rural ambience cannot be beaten.

When travelling overseas, my wife and I like nothing better than to visit regional areas in other countries so we booked a 4 day wine tasting in Burgundy, France. While some of the wineries we visited have international reputations, we soon discovered that our Australian wines are more than comparable and in many instances better.  The quality of our Australian wines is world class and they are relatively inexpensive compared to imported wines.

So while you sip on your glass of locally made wine and nibble a locally created cheese, consider where the grapes are grown and where the cows graze. And imagine making your dream of living in the country a reality.

Finally, a word of caution – remember to enjoy your wine in moderation; it is a marvelous servant, but a terrible master!

Cheers!

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Mar
01

Squeezing more out of life in Orange

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Dr Shannon Nott, Intern at Orange NSW

In early January, I started work as one of the new interns at Orange Health Service in New South Wales. It was a moment that I have been looking forward to since entering medical school but despite having had a great grounding at university, you still cannot help feeling like you are being thrown in the deep end. Your level of “management” changes from those scenarios (‘osces’) that we all practised when we were at med school. Now that you’re a doctor, you can’t get away with the tagline “I don’t know; I’m only a medical student”.

However, from day one at my new job, I have felt welcomed and most importantly completely supported in my role as a junior doctor.  Our orientation made us feel at ease and the senior doctors are very approachable.

The people starting out with me were also a huge support. This is a great aspect of training as a junior doctor in a rural area – you can get all the great training of a metropolitan hospital but also a great sense of community and camaraderie.

It’s nearly two months down the track and I still absolutely love it here in Orange. I chose a rural location for my first few years as a junior doctor because I felt that I would get fantastic teaching from experienced doctors and achieve work-life balance.

So far, all the boxes are being ticked. I live on five acres, 10 minutes out of town.  My partner has brought her horse up from Victoria so we can ride on weekends. We have some fat lambs to keep the grass down and have just acquired a beautiful Hungarian
Viszla pup that we have named Bandi.  I don’t know what you think, but life isn’t too shabby out here in Orange!

Bandi getting life balance right in Orange

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Feb
08

Practice made perfect by extra skills

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Dr Pieter Mourik, Albury Wodonga

This month, I want to report on the three best things about rural medical practice; they are lifestyle, lifestyle and lifestyle!

Let’s face it, medical practice is much the same wherever you go, except that the breadth of practice grows the more isolated you are. If you only want to consult (and I would be bored to an early death doing this), you can work in the city, refer all your procedures and do no night calls.

If you want a lifetime of interesting and rewarding work, go bush, learn extra procedure skills and join a group to share the after-hours calls. I have just read the Rural Doctors Association of Australia’s “Rural Pulse” magazine. Several rural lifestyles are described and all report on the satisfaction of living and working in a rural environment. The comment from one writer was, “I have never been bored at work”; could a city GP honestly say this after 30 years?

Out-of-hours calls are onerous, but rural people are different; they rarely call the doctor unless it is something serious. These calls can really test your skills, but this is where your
advanced training kicks in and knowing that you can have back-up a phone call away, reduces the stress of managing potential life and death situations. It is vital therefore, to advance your skills to be able to manage these emergencies. The other thing you need to practice in the bush is courage and this comes naturally with experience and adequate training.

A doctor friend of mine recently “retired” from a consulting general practice but soon became bored, so she upskilled and is now doing locums for isolated and often solo general practitioners and is loving it! Even in retirement, she will continue to make a valuable contribution to medicine for several more years. National registration makes it easy to go anywhere in Australia to help out and it’s not a bad way of seeing parts of Australia you may never have dreamed of visiting.

I am delighted that the state governments are coming to realize that procedural general practitioners are essential in the bush and the programs are providing the training and the skills necessary to practice in the country. Having appropriate training reduces your stress when faced with an uncommon or serious medical or surgical emergency. It may sound bizarre, but you almost look forward to your next emergency to practise your skills!

When I started in general practice in 1979, the “old style” general practitioners were still practising high quality medicine and surgery. These doctors did all emergencies (there was no-one else to hand them over), did all the confinements including Caesars, did all their own patients’ appendectomies, gave all the general anaesthetics, looked after all the sick neonates and children (no specialist paediatricians then), managed road trauma until the patient could be transferred to a city and used a wide range of skills for a wide range of medical possibilities. This was truly “holistic” practice.

Perhaps this broad scope of practice is no longer possible or recommended, but it is important to have advanced skills in one or perhaps two areas. Then, if you join a group of doctors with a different skill mix, you can provide a rural community with high quality service and prevent having to send “routine” cases to the city. Joining a group of well-trained procedural doctors to share the workload gives you the opportunity to enjoy the lifestyle, lifestyle and lifestyle; the three best things about rural medical practice.

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Jan
21

How to Choose the Best Life Insurance Company?

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Investing in a life insurance policy is often cited as an act of sound judgment. And, it is indeed true! You buy insurance policies to insure your loved ones against the loss of income that can occur at the time of your timely or untimely death. In other words, this is protection for those you leave behind. And, when it comes to protecting your family’s future with insurance policies, you simply cannot ignore the importance of choosing only the best life insurance company.

Life Insurance Company

With so many companies offering insurance policies, many people find it tricky to decide which life insurance company to choose for their needs. And, with the global recession hitting hard on investment sector, the need to check every insurance company’s credentials becomes all the more important. Below given are few tips to help you choose the best life insurance company that fits your need:

Financial record- checking a company’s financial stability is a very important consideration. A company with a good financial record should be worthy of your decision as it will be still in business till your policy lasts.

Ratings- when selecting a lie insurance company, check for its ratings. Higher ratings ensure the company’s credibility.

Products- you have to make sure about what all products the companies are selling. The products you are considering to buy must fit your needs and requirements. Decide only on the most appropriate policy type.

Cost- the premium amount can vary from company to company. Before you invest in any insurance policy, ask the company about the policy’s Net Payment Cost Index and its Surrender Cost Index. The lower the cost index, the better.

Claims – you can check with your state department or online to see what complaint information it has on a company. A thorough research will help you in knowing if the company you are considering has had any consumer complaints or not.

If you want to protect your family’s future, then it becomes important for you to choose the best company for your insurance needs. Gathering life insurance quotes is a good way to find the best policy and a life insurance company. Get the most competitive insurance quotes at http://www.lifeinsurancedirect.com.au/life/company/ and decide on the right policy and the right company.

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Nov
17

A day in the life of an Indigenous health doctor

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Dr Aaron Hollins, Atherton Tablelands QLD

You certainly get to practise a variety of medicine working in Indigenous health in far north Queensland. Here’s an insight into a typical “day in the life”.

I work in a community controlled health service, which is the best way to deliver appropriate primary healthcare.  Part of this means that my patients get screened by an Aboriginal Health Worker before I see them.  The health workers also have a role in who is booked to see me, as well as being involved in my cultural education amongst their other clinical roles.  It is very difficult to deliver Indigenous primary healthcare without them.

So, my first patient is a relatively young guy (40) with diabetes who is undergoing investigation for ischaemic heart disease.  After I find out I know his family from a different part of Queensland, we talk about his new medication and why he is on it (he went from 2 tablets to 8 after a recent admission), as well as ways to make taking the tablets easier (webster pack, combo tablets etc).  We also talk about the investigations and
what is involved.  I think he leaves more informed.

The next lady is stressed because of work and some management changes that have occurred there.  She talks about being born in the 1950s “depressed”, and having to deal with racism all of her life.  It is a humbling moment when you reflect on the fact that she is a little bit older than my dad, and when she was born she did not count as a citizen.  I give her some strategies and some homework before our next visit.

I have a health check to do next on a respected elder, who feels old when I use this description! She also has diabetes, heart disease and arthritis affecting her mobility yet feels well, and is more worried about her husband than she is herself.  Her eyesight and her teeth are the main issues identified from her health check, and we make sure everything else is up to date.

Later that day, I do a health check at the other end of the spectrum on a three year old.  I learn the Jirrbal word for ear.  Some helpful feeding hints are given to try and prevent further tooth decay.

I see two people with chronic suppurative otitis media that day, both presenting with unrelated symptoms. I see a young mum with depression and a story of intergenerational trauma. Unfortunately an all-too-common occurrence.

In between all this, we practise what to do during a power outage (pretty common during the wet season).  I fill up on caffeine, nag the staff about their dietary habits in the tearoom and the day is essentially done.

It’s only later, on the drive home, that I reflect on the variety of presentations, the undiagnosed conditions and the transgenerational issues. As always in Indigenous health, there is plenty to do.

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