Look at all options before considering VHI International
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.