Australia

Two years ago, my dad slipped at the boat ramp and broke his wrist. He went in the local ER, presented the family Medicare card, and they worked right away to put his arm in a cast and prescribe pain medication to him. Nothing was paid out of pocket, and the card was just to verify identity, since nothing is really deducted or anything.

A few months later, he got stung on the ankle by a stingray (luckily the barb didn’t break in his leg,) and was driven to the ER by a step-family member he was able to peddle his bike to quickly. His leg was quickly put in warm water and got given antibiotics, and was admitted for a week stay. After 3 days, it was healed enough for him to voluntarily return home, even though the full stay was still there for assurance. Yet again nothing was paid out of pocket.

For general checkups and appointments, it’s a bit hit or miss, where sometimes you need to pay around $70 AUD, but for others it is fully subsidised. For example, a blood test I had recently was fully free, whereas my most recent dental appointment required payment.

The cool thing is that I actually found out through my MyGov account that Medicare emailed a notice telling me that they owed me $100 and a couple cents, since it was some sort of post-appointment subsidy. Pretty neat honestly, didn’t know at the time they’d even consider doing that.

There’s also a new tier of healthcare facilities which were and are still being built by the Albanese Labor government both last and this term, which are called Urgent Care Clinics, basically being mini hospitals for mainly physical issues like broken arms, cuts or other injuries, which are easy enough to treat. These were created to ease the burden on emergency departments of full blown hospitals, so as to allow more elderly and sick patients to get treatment with less delay.