Vhi Healthcare Reviews 128

Expensive. Limited coverage. Terrible doctor at the 360 clinic (of which there are only two in all of Dublin) who wouldn’t test my daughter’s horrible looking throat for strep or anything - prescribed steroids only. And just the excess for the five-minute urgent care appointment coat more than a GP visit. Appalling.

Two and a half hour wait at their 360 clinic with my mother, whereas Irish Life is approximately 15 minutes any time I've been there. I see why they don't call it swiftcare anymore. Money gouging every year for this level of 'service'.

Extremely dissatisfied after visiting Vhi Galway with a finger injury. The doctor took an xray and no definitive report. Just “oh it’s not clear but could be a fracture.” She made appointment for me to see orthopedist the following week. I thought oh great I’ll see a specialist but he was useless. Didn’t do a repeat xray. Refused to send me for mri. I’m seven weeks in constant pain even after splinting myself for 6 weeks and buddy strapping after that. He basically said that no point in further xray or mri. “It will eventually settle down”. It’s worse than when I first injured. Absolutely 0 stars if I could. Laya health care is so much better !!

I visited VHI 360 health Centre for the first time on Sunday afternoon due to swollen ankle, I was really impressed with the level of care I received, from the moment I arrived I felt reassured and well looked after I would like to thank both my triage nurse Esther and my doctor Gabrielle who had very calm and compassionate approach with me and I thank you for your efficiency and empathy
Regards Esther Dunne

If I could, I would give zero stars. VHI is a nightmare of an insurance company. Customer service? Nonexistent. It takes forever to reach anyone, and when you do, you feel like a nuisance rather than a valued customer. Bills are often wrong, reimbursements take months - if they ever arrive at all.

The insurance terms are written so confusingly that you basically need a law degree just to understand what you’re paying for. And don’t think you’re covered in an emergency - you’ll quickly learn otherwise. I have never experienced so much frustration for so much money.

In short: VHI is a masterclass in how to annoy customers and waste their money. Absolutely not recommended.

They are absolutely unorganized.

A payment did not go through. One day later I called them and paid manually on the phone. Two weeks later they again tried the direct debit what I could prevent.

Why did the employee on the phone process my payment even though she must have known that the system will try again? I received a receipt of my manual payment but they keep saying a payment was overdue. I called again but nobody could help.

Finally, after cancelling the policy, they found my payment.

I had an accident and the dental costs are covered. I made a claim but there is no way to enter additional information besides writing it in the PDF or image. The result was that they only paid the outpatient fees. I had to get back to them several times via E-Mail and finally they paid the first treatment in full.

I sent the claim for the second treatment directly as E-Mail because I remembered the problems with the first treatment. They answered that I should send the claim via the app. I sent it with a detailed explanation in the document and guess what, they did not read it and again only paid the outpatient costs. I had to send it again as E-Mail and they finally paid.

What a waste of time.

This company is absolutely unable to process the requests, the staff is absolutely uninformed and is not able to assist in any way.

I could end my insurance because I have one with my employer now. I am so happy that I do not have to deal with this incompetent people anymore.

I got VHI Health and Dental insurance through my company (all cost covered by the company). After leaving the company, VHI sent me an invoice for each of the insurances for me to pay the rest of the period until the policy premium expiry date (it was almost €1000 for Health and €200 for Dental). I found this very infuriating because they made no effort to contact me to see if I want to keep the Health and Dental insurances on my own cost. I had to call their customer support by phone, 20 min on the line to get through Health support, they canceled my policy and then transferred me back in the call queue to talk to the dental team, another 10 min on the call and when the agent picked up, they hung up on me immediately. So after 30 min with them, I had consumed all my phone credit (€20) and only had my Health insurance canceled. Had to top up my phone and stay another 15 min to get through to their dental team before I could get this sorted.
Aside from the above, their VHI mobile app is useless for claims, they make it very difficult for people to get their money back from them. You have to pay for everything in advance, then claim it from them. Examples: they have a separate website where you have to register and create a new account just to submit dental claims, you cannot submit dental claims without knowing the teeth numbers (which are not always written on the receipt), you can only contact their customer support by phone (no chat or email support), they have limited and confusing categories for health claims which you have to select before you submit a claim, if you happen to select the wrong one because they are vague, they reject your claim and make you start all over again, etc
It's just clear in general that VHI is trying to make it as difficult, confusing and expensive for customers to get their money back, they have terrible Customer Support and trying to make people pay insurance premiums after leaving a company on a corporate plan is absolutely infuriating.

Waisted time and money

VHI on the whole over the years have been quite good. But then looking back I never claimed for anything much. This has changed since we took out VHI international. We pay 900 per month for two people. It is chaos. It is called VHI international but actually it is run by Collinson. Obviously contract is with VHI. But there are systemic problems which have resulted in us sitting here in Spain with no money whatsoever and having to go to social services tomorrow for food having exhausted all other options such as friends. The worst is the money they owe us means my credit card payment was late which I can not pay and I can not continue to keep the car for my disabled child. It has to go back on Saturday. They were told of this in advance, and yet despite this they still could not pay on time and make a difference.

There are four main problems:
1. Lack of coordination and clear messaging between VHI and Collinson. We call VHI and they say no that's VHI International and put you through and then they say no that's Collinson and they say no thats VHI. Who is accountable for what is unclear to me - and to VHI staff it seems.
2. Lack of ability to use the VHI portal once you are with VHI international. When you submit an invoice to VHI international you get an email saying a claim has been received but its impossible to tie everything up, then they email you raising queries and you have no idea at all what they are talking about. You can not use snip and send. We had domestic receipts to claim back. The year before we moved was very hard as one of us was ill and we did not know what was happening and it got left as low priority. On July 24th I tried to submit those by snip and send and found I couldn't so I called VHI who said no, you have to send everything by paper. I explained (and they know) our currently situation in Spain which is dire due to reasons not due to them but due medical illness of one of us, and then i had the pleasure of being electric shocks and am also now ill. I am now just started back at work but the reclaim was part of ensuring we had something to live on. Because our older claims are no longer visible in the portal because we are now on VHI international and my sight was bad. I couldnt believe I had to send by paper but did as told, only to have to keep calling and being told they had not receieved from Spain. But they had. It had been signed for - this went on for a week after they receieved it. When I had pushed back on sending by paper I had been told 'dont worry we will expedite everything'. I felt so reassured. But never has it been this bad. They have once more sent cheques and not paid despite an email last week stating no do not worry we are not sending cheques we have your bank details. Thus we have nothing. Literally nothing.
3. Lack of accountability. You call or email and you never get the same person. Honestly I really believe some of them make it up as they go along. There seems to be a lack of leadership and ownership. If you call up you can not get any sense at all. People answer emails without having read the chain and they contradict each other both on the phone and email. They keep trying to send cheques to Spain.
3. Their staff overuse GDPR. Whoever is giving them the training seems to have possibly come from a non healthcare background. What are you supposed to do if your other member is unconcious?? Well the insist on wanting to talk to them. It causes such distress. I ended up getting a power of attorney and then bizarrely when I provided it I had to give it to VHI, VHI International and Collinson separately otherwise I would call up and be passed around as usual but with people saying they could not help me. But I only have the one contract.
4. They added a 20% co-pay to VHI international with no adequate notice. Just in the renewal which when people are dependent on insurance abroad for residency and sick, this shows a complete lack of understanding of inevitable harm. They have stopped the other person being able to keep residency in Spain due to this. We can not go back to Ireland as there is no adeqaute medical care for their diagnosis which only got diagnosed here - this person is 23 years old and it is life limiting. Now we have to ask for residency on human rights grounds.

I could go on but I will not. It is a mess. I would give three pieces of advice.
1. If you are moving abroad look at ALL options before chosing VHI international and know the complexity. It is NOT VHI as they sub-contract which causes a lot of issues.
2. Ensure you have filed all of your domestic claims before moving to limit the chaos.
3. Ensure you have signed PoA between each other so that if something happens you are not stuck with their hyper GDPR

There are so many things which could be simply improved. There needs to be better leadership which is the problem within Ireland in terms of healthcare generally as we have learnt.

I switched to VHI only this month having been with Laya for over 11 years. For me, the acquisition of Laya by AXA changed the company, and not for the better. Claim payments got slower, significant price increases occurred, to name a few!
I much prefer to support an Irish owned company, hence my move to VHI.
I attended the Consultant last week, submitted my Everyday claim on the VHI app and claim paid the next day. All expenses at the Hospital were also covered minus the €75 excess. 10/10 from me.

Vhi swiftcare clinic swords, first time using this service, really impressed with service provided, up from wexford on holiday for few days, needed to visit doctor re eye..from the reception to the nurse and finally the doctor.. Everybody so good.. Thank you highly recommend 😊🙏👍

I phoned to discuss travel insurance for my wife,
she has a current multi trip travel policy that I set up and paid for last September,
we also have VHI health insurance which I setup and pay for,
VHI would not discuss this with me because I'm not my wife!
Infuriating!

We are on holidays in Tenerife. Our eldest needed to go to hospital. Our travel insurance was very unhelpful so we phoned VHI for advice. Immediately everything was sorted and healthcare was accessed and paid for by VHI. Huge thanks to George who was extremely helpful and professional.

I am really very disappointed by VHI centre carricmines, I went there with my foot pain, they charge me €75 although I am paying insurance every month. After about 2 hour doctor check me and said we don't have any type of facilities like blood test etc, just go to your Gp or public hospital. I requested for medical cert, he said they will give you a medical cert as well , I can't do it here, was so painful, I requested pain killer at least, then give me 2 tablets only . No prescription nothing.

My father visited the VHI clinic in Limerick and was very pleased with the care he received. He was looked after by Dr Syed Muktadar who took great time in explaining everything to him.

I have been with Vhi for over 17 years and I would not recommend at all. They are ripping me off! For the first time, I needed a surgery, when I filed a claim, they said that they would only cover the average cost of my procedure and not the full amount! I appealed couple of times and their staff were condescending and lack any understanding of the urgency of my medical condition. They basically expect you to just wait until you die as long as you don't bother them. Some conditions requires immediate intervention or else, you will end up in hospital more often! There is lack of medical knowledge among their staff.

I have been with VHI for more than 30 years. My experiences in the main have been positive. Tonight we are experiencing the care centre in Carrickmines unfortunitely its not great started with being charged up front and told the wait will be two hours. Probably should have used doctors on call or maybe even A&E in one of the hospitals.

Had an online consultation with Dr. Kelechi Chukwumerije this afternoon. I've been really ill for 5 days, no solid food retained . He seemed either bored or exhausted, kept yawning, and mouthed all the old platitudes about hydration, etc., then told me to go to my g.p. I really felt he wasn't listening at all and didn't care. That cost me €33. Never again....

Dealing with VHI has been an infuriating experience. They routinely reject legitimate claims based on flimsy, often nonsensical reasons. Every step of the process is deliberately convoluted — endless forms, repeated requests for the same documents, and vague communications designed, no doubt, to wear you down in the hope that you'll give up and go away. It's a masterclass in obstruction.

It feels less like an insurance provider and more like a bureaucratic maze built to protect their bottom line, not your health.

Save yourself the stress. Don’t waste your time or money on VHI.

I do not recommend, especially online doctor in VHI options, you pay for everything that is written in your contract, when you are already sick, the doctor calls and tells you to take lemsip for fever and bronchitis, muscle pain etc., and at the end he says to go to the GP, so all this health insurance is of no help, you have to do everything privately anyway, so think carefully about whether to join them