One of the frustrating aspects of Cochlear implants is that the government only funds one. However if you have only one, you can not hear directionally. You would be surprised how much you rely on your directional hearing.
We decided to fund the second implant. We made this decision when we thought it would be around $25-28k. Very quickly we found the price increasing. What the original figures turned out to be is the cost of the implant only and the GST exclusive price.
Currently we still don't know how much the whole operation will cost. As parents facing such a big decision... and a decision that we had only a few days to make... it would have been really helpful to have had a single figure in mind. So I hope to provide this as we get the bills in.
What we do know is that if you get the second cochlear implant as part of a separate operation, it will cost you $50k. If you do it at the same time as the government funded one, you can piggy back on a lot of the government funded parts of the procedure which are no more expensive (ie travel, hospital stay, Xrays, consultations, etc) for one or two implants.
What you will have to fund is the second implant. The implant and processor is $29,812.50 including GST.
Prices excluding GST for kids is really a distraction as there is no way of claiming this GST back without committing tax fraud. A cochlear implant in a 2 year old is going to be very hard to pass off as a business related expense.
Because of the very short decision window we have had, the Southern Hearing Charitable Trust has allowed us to pay this off over 3 months. This makes it a lot easier to sort out the funding.
So... we are currently waiting on the following bills that I will post as they come in. We should then get a real price:
ENT Surgeon... $2000
Anesthetist... $430
Hospital Operating Theatre extra cost... $1574.07 (for 87min)
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