To share your thoughts or ask a question, visit the CHOICE community forum.
Established in 1840, Australian Unity delivers health, wealth and care services. The mutual company has 345,000 health fund members nationwide and is part of Members Health, an alliance of nonprofit and mutual health funds. While it isn’t a nonprofit fund, as a mutual company it returns profits to benefit members.
Phone: 1300 793 157
Website: australianunity.com.au
Australian Unity has a Medium complaints rating.
When we score policies we give each fund a complaints rating, based on the number of complaints and serious disputes the Ombudsman deals with. We take into account the size of the fund, so big funds don’t get automatically penalised for having more complaints. The ratings are Low, Medium and High. A Low rating is better than a High rating – it means the fund has fewer complaints and fewer serious disputes for its size.
A medical gap is the difference between Medicare’s recommended fee and what your doctor actually charges for a treatment or service.
Health funds have agreements with particular doctors and hospitals to cover all of the gap, which are called ‘no gap agreements’, or part of that gap, which are called ‘known gap agreements’ (these will have lower out-of-pocket costs, usually less than $500).
Our graphic below displays the CHOICE gap rating, which takes into account the percentage of services where members either paid no gap or a known gap, compared to the state average.
Average.
Average.
Below average.
Above average.
Average.
Average.
Above average.
Average.
The benefit amount your fund pays you for hospital services depends not only on the type of cover you buy, but also whether your fund has an agreement with the hospital where you’re treated.
The table below shows how many hospital agreements Australian Unity has in your state compared to the fund with the highest number (the industry maximum). Note that public hospitals don’t have agreements with specific funds and are generally treated as though they’re agreement hospitals.
5 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 6.
8 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 9.
86 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 92.
89 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 105.
1 private hospital agreement out of an industry maximum of 1.
2 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 2.
50 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 58.
45 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 54.
18 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 20.
24 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 31.
8 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 8.
3 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 9.
69 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 71.
70 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 80.
21 private hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 23.
19 day hospital agreements out of an industry maximum of 29.
Discount for direct debit: 4%.
Discount for annual prepay: 4% (not in addition to the above).
Total discount for annual prepay via direct debit: 4%.
Youth discounts: None.
Australian Unity hospital, extras, and combined policies offer unlimited emergency ambulance in all states, as well as two ambulance attendances (where you are not taken to hospital) per person per calendar year.
Online claiming and in-app (iOS and Android) claiming is available for dental, optical, physio, chiro, osteo, podiatry, speech/eye/occupational therapy, acupuncture, myotherapy, remedial massage, and dietetics.