As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact us here in Australia and around the globe, we’re all doing our best to adapt. At Teachers Health, we’re adapting too. And it’s all about finding ways to support you now, and in the future. 

At the start of the pandemic, we introduced a COVID-19 member-support package. Here's an update on those measures.

These changes were designed to help you get the most out of your cover – they’ve since been extended to 31 December 2022:

• Telehealth – We’ve always paid benefits towards telepsychology under Extras cover. We’ve since extended this to a wider range of services, including physio, chiro and speech therapy.
  
  
• Cover for COVID-19 – Members on all levels of Hospital cover are covered for COVID-19 admissions. This is especially relevant for members on our Basic Plus products StarterPak, Basic Hospital and Mid Hospital (who wouldn’t have had full cover for COVID-19 admissions otherwise).
  
  
• New Family program – our New Family Program will remain open to more members with Hospital cover, to help families who may struggle to access standard ante and postnatal services. This is just one of the programs the Teachers Healthcare Services team helps our members access.
  
  
• A little less admin – to help doctors prioritise patients who are seriously unwell, we’ll continue to honour existing doctor’s letters on file for healthy lifestyle and birth control claims. And we won’t ask you for a letter for travel or artificial appliance claims.

As a not-for-profit health fund, we exist to look after our members, not provide payouts to shareholders. We put the following measures in place to help ease some of the financial stress you may have been experiencing:

• Financial hardship – Previously members could apply to suspend their membership due to lost income because of COVID-19. This financial hardship measure was in place until 31 March 2021 but has now ended. If you’re having financial difficulties, you can still apply to suspend your membership under our standard membership suspension process.
  
  
• Suspension (overseas travel) – We’ve relaxed the rules on suspension to better support members who suspended their cover and are stuck overseas. For suspended members that are overseas and have exceeded the 3 year suspension threshold, but are unable to return home due to the pandemic, upon request, we will allow the membership to remain suspended until up to and including 28/02/2022 (Australian citizens are now permitted to return home).