Making a delayed health insurance claim

Hello all,

It's a shame i didn't see this website while I lived in Germany, would have saved me some cash and alot of headaches
I recently moved back from germany after living for 2 years in bremen. I'm currently living in Ireland.

so my problem is as follows,
As i said i recenlty moved back to ireland from germany. In August 2006 i injured my hip while cycling and have recently been told that i need surgery to fix it. I was insured with TKK up until the end of january 2007 and was insured by them from the 2 years i was there. I recently started with the new health private insurance company in ireland but they refuse to cover any injuries that occurred before their coverage started. So I contacted TKK and asked them what was the story? Would they cover my operation since i was injured when covered by them? They said that they would only cover treatment that up until the end of january 2007 when my payments stopped. They said that within the EU every citizen is covered to some degree and they said that the irish public health service was now responsible for my coverage. In an ideal world i would just walk into a hospital in ireland and all would be fixed, but due to the state of the irish health service (4 millon people in a system designed for 2.5 millon people) it will take up to 2 years to get the operation and by that stage i'll be walking like kaiser sosse.

Initially i accepted TKK's statement that i wasn't their problem anymore, but recently a friend told me that he had a bike accident and TKK insisted on doing a full medical so any injuries that occur in the future due to the accident would be covered by them even if he changes coverage. While I've accepted that i will have to pay for the treatment myself privately, I would like to have a little peace of mind that TKK isn't trying to cop out of paying up.

any help would be appreciated,

Ronan

If your covered under the public system it shouldn't matter where or why you injured your self. You should be able to walk into the local doctor and get a referal to a specialist. Of course being abit furgal with the truth can help as well they don't need to everything!