Yep. Medical tourism exists when the cost of local healthcare is inflated by profit-seeking to flatly unaffordable levels, resulting in grotesque health outcomes and extreme behaviors such as traveling thousands of miles or committing crimes in order to end up in prison for care. I would like to coin a term for this kind of disturbing extreme behavior incentivized by extreme distortion of society: fever spasms. It sounds better in German, so: fieberkrämpfe.
Out of pocket price of standard blood panel lab in the USA with a follow up phone call if something is wrong, with insurance: $1500. There is no ability to estimate even vaguely what the price will be beforehand, and the bill may take a month to arrive in the mail. Your insurance agency will fight you at every turn for all but the most mundane routine procedures. There will be a billing error somewhere, and it will be to your detriment. They may refer you to collections if you do not pay the incorrect amount while disputing the charges, as happened to my girlfriend. Face time with the doctor is probably minimal, and you will be stressed by the doctor's attempts to hurry you out the door and probably forget to ask important questions.
Out of pocket price of extended blood panel lab plus two hours of doctor face to face analysis without insurance in Argentina: $50 USD, and the doctor will speak perfect English. Smartly, the doctor arranges the items on the blood panel before you visit him in the first place. No in-depth discussion of your health can begin before the doctor cannily takes your medical history via a very casual schmooze-sesh which plays out more like old friends catching up. You leave the office relaxed, understanding your health action-items.
Where do you think I'm going to go when I need serious treatment? The US medical system is a failure and an international joke.
> There will be a billing error somewhere, and it will be to your detriment. They may refer you to collections if you do not pay the incorrect amount while disputing the charges, as happened to my girlfriend.
Yep. Can confirm: US hospitals and other care providers are total d-bags when it comes to billing. It doesn't help that for anything remotely complicated you end up receiving 2-3 different bills from each of 5-6 different entities (the hospital, a couple of doctors or departments in the hospital, a couple of labs, a GP for your checkups afterward, et c.), only one of which from each will actually be the one you need to pay. It can easily take most of a year to sort all the crap out, especially if you have any kind of dispute with insurance or billing error from the providers (the bigger the procedure, the closer the probability of this approaches 100%). Makes for a totally stress-free recovery. eye roll
It's like it's designed to screw up people's credit, even when they're trying to pay what they owe.
> It's like it's designed to screw up people's credit, even when they're trying to pay what they owe.
I had a bill that was 100% covered by insurance, only they never sent it to me. it's 3 years later and despite my insurance now paying the bill twice, countless conversations, some collections agency is still giving me calls, and it's still on my credit report.
I have insurance, I make a great income, I paid every bill that I received. Somehow it's still biting me.
(It's not a huge debt, and I disputed it as soon as the collection notice arrived, and my credit is not direly affected)
Out of pocket price of standard blood panel lab in the USA with a follow up phone call if something is wrong, with insurance: $1500. There is no ability to estimate even vaguely what the price will be beforehand, and the bill may take a month to arrive in the mail. Your insurance agency will fight you at every turn for all but the most mundane routine procedures. There will be a billing error somewhere, and it will be to your detriment. They may refer you to collections if you do not pay the incorrect amount while disputing the charges, as happened to my girlfriend. Face time with the doctor is probably minimal, and you will be stressed by the doctor's attempts to hurry you out the door and probably forget to ask important questions.
Out of pocket price of extended blood panel lab plus two hours of doctor face to face analysis without insurance in Argentina: $50 USD, and the doctor will speak perfect English. Smartly, the doctor arranges the items on the blood panel before you visit him in the first place. No in-depth discussion of your health can begin before the doctor cannily takes your medical history via a very casual schmooze-sesh which plays out more like old friends catching up. You leave the office relaxed, understanding your health action-items.
Where do you think I'm going to go when I need serious treatment? The US medical system is a failure and an international joke.