My wife is a Dentist in Bangalore, India, and it's amazing what I hear. Basically Cost(Flight to india + treatment cost) The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems on multiple levels.
Edit, typed .
My adventures in medical tourism
11–20 of 202 posts
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#12My wife is a Dentist in Bangalore, India, and it's amazing what I hear. Basically Cost(Flight to india + treatment cost) The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems on multiple levels. Edit, typed .
you mean < ?
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#13My wife is a Dentist in Bangalore, India, and it's amazing what I hear. Basically Cost(Flight to india + treatment cost) The more you think about it, the more crazy it seems on multiple levels. Edit, typed .
Are you sure you mean greater than there?
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#14I am originally from India and came to the US 10 years ago. I still can't believe that you can not call up a doctor/clinic/hospital in US and get a price quote for something routine. Chris's experience is representative of what one can expect from the Indian health care system. If you are a working, middle class person, the free market health care works extremely well.
Exactly. Imagine how much of a hassle car repairs would be if your car insurance company handled an oil change or a tire balance/rotation.
Imagine how much a hassle car repairs would be if cars were a staggeringly complex biological system where parts could not be replaced figuring out what was wrong was difficult and all work had to be done in while it was driving down the road and it was really easy for you to die if a mistake was made and other people had to pay for it.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#15I am originally from India and came to the US 10 years ago. I still can't believe that you can not call up a doctor/clinic/hospital in US and get a price quote for something routine. Chris's experience is representative of what one can expect from the Indian health care system. If you are a working, middle class person, the free market health care works extremely well.
Ha. Back when our son was having regular lab exams, we were in the States. When we asked Bloomington Hospital for a price for one lab exam, the receptionist asked us, "Why? Don't you want the best for your child?"
Yeah, lady, that includes not giving you all our money without asking how much you'll be taking.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#16My wife had some complications after pregnancy. UK and Ireland has GP referral system, where single doctor coordinates all specialists. In theory it is good system. But our GP ignored basic symptoms and pushed bullshit like "depression" or "have you tried acupuncture?". We paid each GP visit, even for saying hi and collecting results, it was obvious GP was just pushing for more visits. This was going on for several m…
This is similar to how the Dutch system works. You normally go to your GP which will refer you to a specialist if required. The problem is that they always want to try a simple treatment first, without investigating thoroughly the causes of the illness. That means that you get sent home with paracetamol and only if you go the 2nd or 3rd time to the GP will you get sent to the specialist. My friend developed a type of auto-immune disease and because of the delays made by his GP his condition worsened a lot.
Since a lot of people have hypochondriac tendencies, this system has the advantage of reducing the amount of people that go to hospitals, which in turn reduces both infections in hospitals and the overall costs of the system. But for individuals, the chances of getting screwed are higher.
edit: typo
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#17One thing I've never understood about the US system is why do the doctors charge more for paying cash e.g. $200 for a visit, whereas insurance reimburses them less than half e.g. $80. In everything else e.g. car repairs, the cash price is always lower than insurance covered price. Any ideas why this is so?
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#18I am originally from India and came to the US 10 years ago. I still can't believe that you can not call up a doctor/clinic/hospital in US and get a price quote for something routine. Chris's experience is representative of what one can expect from the Indian health care system. If you are a working, middle class person, the free market health care works extremely well.
>I still can't believe that you can not call up a doctor/clinic/hospital in US and get a price quote for something routine You can. Routine, profitable procedures are not hard to arrange in the US. I have personally worked in a clinic where the exact experience described in this post happens every day. >If you are a working, middle class person, the free market health care works extremely well. It's pretty easy in mo…
> You can. Routine, profitable procedures are not hard to arrange in the US. I have personally worked in a clinic where the exact experience described in this post happens every day.
For the majority, this is simply not the case. I'm sure there are exceptions as our country is very large, but most people's experience would be very similar to the OPs. I'd suggest reading Healing of America by T.R. Reed if you're interested in the working of US compared to other systems.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#19One thing I've never understood about the US system is why do the doctors charge more for paying cash e.g. $200 for a visit, whereas insurance reimburses them less than half e.g. $80. In everything else e.g. car repairs, the cash price is always lower than insurance covered price. Any ideas why this is so?
Insurers negotiate a volume discount.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Imagine how much of a hassle car repairs would be if your car insurance company handled an oil change or a tire balance/rotation.
Imagine how much a hassle car repairs would be if cars were a staggeringly complex biological system where parts could not be replaced figuring out what was wrong was difficult and all work had to be done in while it was driving down the road and it was really easy for you to die if a mistake was made and other people had to pay for it.
That sounds like a modern car to me. sans biological