Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Sebelum pulang, kami membayar biaya konsultasi dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor. - Before going home, we pay the consultation fee with the health insurance from the office.

Pulang in Indonesian already means “to go home / to return home.”
Because the idea of “home” is built into the verb, you don’t need to add rumah.

pulang ≈ “go home”
pergi = “go (somewhere)”

You can say pulang ke rumah for emphasis, but in everyday speech pulang alone is fully natural and not incomplete.

Why is it Sebelum pulang and not Sebelum kami pulang?

Both are grammatically correct.

Sebelum pulang, kami … = “Before going home, we …”
Sebelum kami pulang, kami … = “Before we went home, we …”

In Indonesian, if the subject of the subordinate part is the same as the main subject (kami), it’s very common to omit it:

Sebelum pulang, kami membayar … (more natural, concise)
Sebelum kami pulang, kami membayar … (a bit more explicit / formal)

Can I move sebelum pulang to the end of the sentence, and does the comma matter?

Yes, you can move it:

Kami membayar biaya konsultasi dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor sebelum pulang.

The meaning is the same; only the focus changes slightly. Putting sebelum pulang at the beginning gives more emphasis to the time condition.

About the comma:

With fronted phrases like Sebelum pulang, Indonesian writing normally uses a comma:
Sebelum pulang, kami membayar …
Without the comma is sometimes seen, but the comma makes the structure clearer and is recommended in standard writing.

Why do we say membayar biaya konsultasi instead of just membayar konsultasi?

Indonesian usually treats biaya / ongkos / harga / tagihan as the thing you pay, rather than the event itself.

So you typically say:

membayar biaya konsultasi – pay the consultation fee
membayar biaya sekolah – pay school fees
membayar tagihan listrik – pay the electricity bill

Membayar konsultasi is understandable but sounds less natural; it feels like you are “paying the consultation (session)” instead of “paying the fee.” Biaya konsultasi is the usual collocation.

What is the difference between biaya, harga, and ongkos, and why use biaya here?

Roughly:

biaya = cost / fee / expense
Often used for services, official charges, education, medical, legal, etc.
→ biaya konsultasi, biaya operasi, biaya pendidikan
harga = price (sticker price, advertised price)
Used very widely: harga baju, harga tiket, harga rumah, harga konsultasi (the listed price for a consultation).
ongkos = fare / cost of a service, a bit more colloquial, often for transport or practical services:
ongkos taksi, ongkos kirim, ongkos jahit.

In this sentence, biaya konsultasi is the standard choice for a consultation fee at a clinic or hospital.

What does dengan do in dengan asuransi kesehatan, and could I use menggunakan or pakai instead?

Here dengan marks the means or instrument, so it means “with / by using”:

membayar … dengan asuransi kesehatan
= pay … with health insurance (as the means of payment)

You can say:

membayar biaya konsultasi menggunakan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor
membayar biaya konsultasi pakai asuransi kesehatan dari kantor (more casual)

All three are acceptable. Rough nuance:

dengan – neutral, common, works in most registers.
menggunakan – a bit more explicit/formal: “using”.
pakai – informal / conversational.

What you can’t do is simply drop the preposition:
✗ membayar biaya konsultasi asuransi kesehatan (needs dengan / pakai / menggunakan).

Does asuransi kesehatan dari kantor mean the insurance comes from the office building, or that it is provided by my company?

In normal context, asuransi kesehatan dari kantor is understood as:

“the health insurance provided by my workplace / employer.”

Dari kantor here refers to the source/provider, not the physical building. It’s a common everyday way to say company health insurance or employer-provided health insurance.

Could dari kantor also describe biaya konsultasi, like “the consultation fee from the office”?

Grammatically, a phrase usually attaches to the nearest noun, so in:

biaya konsultasi dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor

the natural reading is:

asuransi kesehatan (dari kantor)
not
biaya konsultasi (… dari kantor)

If you wanted “consultation fee from the office”, you would normally put dari kantor right after biaya konsultasi:

kami membayar biaya konsultasi dari kantor dengan asuransi kesehatan
(even then, context would decide whether biaya or asuransi is “from the office”)

In actual use, the original sentence is most naturally read as “health insurance from the office.”

Why is there no past tense marker in kami membayar, even though the English translation uses the past (“we paid”)?

Indonesian does not have grammatical tense like English. The same verb form can mean:

kami membayar = we pay / we are paying / we paid

Time is understood from context or time words such as:

kemarin (yesterday)
sudah (already)
tadi (a short while ago)
sebelum pulang (before going home)

Here, Sebelum pulang signals that the action happened before going home, so English naturally uses the past. You could add sudah for extra clarity/completion:
Sebelum pulang, kami sudah membayar biaya konsultasi …

What is the difference between kami and kita here? Could I use kita instead of kami?

kami = “we / us” excluding the listener.
kita = “we / us” including the listener (or sometimes “we all” in a broad sense).

In this sentence, if you are talking to someone who was not with you at the time, you should use kami:

Sebelum pulang, kami membayar …
→ “Before going home, we (not including you) paid …”

If you actually did this together with the listener, then kita would be right:

Sebelum pulang, kita membayar …

For learners, it’s best to keep this distinction clear.

Is the word order fixed? Can I say kami membayar dengan asuransi kesehatan biaya konsultasi?

Indonesian basic order is:

Subject – Verb – Object – (extra phrases like time, place, manner)

So the natural order is:

kami (S)
membayar (V)
biaya konsultasi (O)
dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor (instrument phrase)

→ Kami membayar biaya konsultasi dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor.

Putting the dengan-phrase before the object:

✗ kami membayar dengan asuransi kesehatan biaya konsultasi

sounds unnatural and confusing.

If you want to emphasize the insurance, you can front the whole prepositional phrase instead:

Dengan asuransi kesehatan dari kantor, kami membayar biaya konsultasi.

Could I say Sebelum pergi ke rumah instead of Sebelum pulang? Would it sound natural?

It’s understandable, but it doesn’t sound natural in this context.

pulang already means “go (back) home” to your own place.
pergi ke rumah literally is “go to a house/home” and doesn’t automatically imply “my own home.”

For “before going home (after a visit to the doctor)”, native speakers say:

Sebelum pulang, …
or possibly
Sebelum pulang ke rumah, … (a bit more explicit)

Sebelum pergi ke rumah would feel odd unless context really needs “going to (some) house,” not “going back home.”

Do I need an article or classifier with asuransi kesehatan, like sebuah asuransi kesehatan?

No article is needed. Indonesian has no obligatory “a / an / the” like English.

asuransi kesehatan dari kantor
= “the/our company health insurance” (context supplies definiteness)

You would usually only add something like sebuah if you wanted to emphasize one specific item in contrast to others, e.g.:

sebuah asuransi kesehatan swasta – a (certain) private health insurance policy

In your sentence, asuransi kesehatan dari kantor is naturally understood as the employer-provided health insurance, without any extra word.