Having traveled a lot for work, I've had the good fortune to have received care in South Africa, dental work in Serbia and a number of regular treatments in Mexico. I'm a born and raised US citizen though I also have an EU passport. Any day of the week I'll sit on a plane for a few hours and pay less for much better care in another country. Healthcare is a racket here.
Better believe when retirement comes I'm nowhere near the USA.
My adventures in medical tourism
161–170 of 202 posts
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#162I should mention that Paul Buchheit wants to fund the Uber of medical tourism: https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/566379518261088258 The tweet: "I want to fund the 'Uber' of medical tourism Needs 5 star service, simplicity and safety Let me know if you apply - http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/" It really has to happen. Health care in the US is just fucked, and everyone knows it.
I don't see how this helps people who are the most fucked: the working poor.
Even the working poor in the US could probably scrape together the kind of sums mentioned in the story - about $4000 inc a flight. Though I guess time off could be an issue. Still there are probably a lot of people with like $10k in the bank that could afford Indian care but not US.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#163It's true that healthcare is terrible in the U.S. if you don't have health insurance, but he overstates his case. Chris compares a 1 in a 1000 nightmare scenario to his very average experience. A $112,000 error happens in the U.S. but is rare. Typically the type of surgery he mentions costs between $20,000-$50,000. Or 50-100% of a the U.S. gdp per capita. This is smaller than in India where the cost of his surgery wa…
The US health care system sucks. I'm generally happy to be back in the US, but not about this particular aspect of it. It's more bureaucratic than Italy, costs more, isn't appreciably better, and wastes people's time more. What's more, even though Italy has a single payer system, there is also private care available that is quick, cheap and efficient - which it has to be, since the competition is "free" (tax funded).…
I'm a dual US/EU (Italy) citizen. This 1000 times. The fact that the US system is more Byzantine than the Italian system is mind-blowing.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
It says he went back specifically to have the surgery.
Well, sort of. I would have gone back anyway (I had a girlfriend in Pune, as the pictures sort of hint at, and no reason to be in the US), but my return trip would have been slower and passed through more interesting places. The OP is absolutely right that it would have been more difficult for me if I knew nothing whatsoever about India. However, I probably could have paid a couple of thousand USD more and OnP (the h…
Good to see you on the other side of this. Any surgery is risky and if your troubles are gone that's fantastic news. Are you still in touch with the people there for check-ups or is it done for good?
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#165I'd recommend doing some more reading on the health care system in India. I believe that it worked really well for the poster; my initial research seems to indicate that there's a huge difference between the health care you can get in urban areas of India and the health care you can get if you're poor and rural. It's easy to build a health care system that works for people with money. The infant mortality rate in Ind…
They do have good quality private care which a lot of people in India cannot afford but most people from developed countries could.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im sorry to hear that you had bad experiences in Canada. However your personal story is effectively one data point and not necessarily representative of a good comparison between healthcare systems. This analysis is a pretty good overall analysis of the quality, efficacy and safety of different healthcare systems. That’s not to say that just because the US is worse overall that it doesn’t perform better in a subset o…
Keep in mind many of the statistics you posted - healthy lives, health equity, access to care, etc. are extremely important on a population health level (says the Epidemiologist...) but not necessarily for any particular individual, especially one with the money to spend.
America's rarely been a bad place to be for one with money to spend.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#167It's true that healthcare is terrible in the U.S. if you don't have health insurance, but he overstates his case. Chris compares a 1 in a 1000 nightmare scenario to his very average experience. A $112,000 error happens in the U.S. but is rare. Typically the type of surgery he mentions costs between $20,000-$50,000. Or 50-100% of a the U.S. gdp per capita. This is smaller than in India where the cost of his surgery wa…
An error that large may be rare, but the overall experience of massive/unexpected financial load is fairly common via my experience hearing from customers (full disclosure: I founded a medical tourism startup called Emissary two years ago: https://www.emissarymed.com ) We talk to people all the time who don't have insurance (20-30M last time I checked), don't have dental insurance (~150M), or whose insurance comes wi…
Love it.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, sort of. I would have gone back anyway (I had a girlfriend in Pune, as the pictures sort of hint at, and no reason to be in the US), but my return trip would have been slower and passed through more interesting places. The OP is absolutely right that it would have been more difficult for me if I knew nothing whatsoever about India. However, I probably could have paid a couple of thousand USD more and OnP (the h…
Good to see you on the other side of this. Any surgery is risky and if your troubles are gone that's fantastic news. Are you still in touch with the people there for check-ups or is it done for good?
I hope it's done for good, but being 6'6" means that there is always risk of further injury. No point in a checkup - no pain = no problem.
I'm not deadlifting anymore, however.
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
That can no longer happen (since January 1, 2014). Insurance policies now have out-of-pocket maximums thanks to Obamacare. The 2016 limits are: $6,850 for self-only coverage and $13,700 for a family plan. So you would have stopped hemorrhaging money at $6,850, and then the insurance company would have been 100% responsible for the rest.
I realize that. I work in the health "insurance" industry (as a vendor). Notwithstanding that, it was considered a voluntary procedure, though there was no way the stone would pass (11mm x 6mm) - average ureter size is 3-5mm and I had to sit in the billing office and work out a 'financial solution' with them prior to authorizing surgery (negotiating anything while in this much pain would probably be considered close…
On the flipside, Obama has endorsed the usage of "Obamacare," because he does in fact care:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-bus-tour-obama-embraces-obama...
Re: My adventures in medical tourism
#170My 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 .
I wrote about this last year on my blog. It would be cheaper to fly to Colombia and spend 7 days there while having a mole removed, than to have it removed in Chicago, with an ACA health insurance plan. The round-trip flight to Colombia alone, excluding any actual care or other expenses, was the same price as having an American dermatologist spend 30 seconds taking the initial biopsy. https://alexcabal.com/today-i-ha…
Great article. I'm fully in agreement with your analysis and am a huge proponent of free markets solving health care in the US.
One striking area you can see the difference in the US is in elective surgeries -- for example cosmetic surgeries and Lasik surgeries. Insurance doesn't cover elective, so the providers take cash only (or credit/payments). Providers often have the fanciest and newest equipment with clean modern facilities. Prices are disclosed to and agreed upon by the patient ahead of time, and in general get cheaper over time due to competition.
FYI, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma is one of the only surgery facilities in the US which actually lists their price schedule on their website: http://surgerycenterok.com