Originally Posted by getsaround (Post 17373302)

I was in Montreal with a female friend who fell and injured her knee. We went to the nearest hospital in the French district. The doctor wanted CAN $200 cash. They x-rayed her, bandaged her up and said she was OK.

When she got back to the US she found out her kneecap was in fact broken.

The hospital was dingy, dark and rather scary with patients on gurneys in every hallway.

Wouldn't want to need medical care in Canada, thanks.

Originally Posted by nerd (Post 17243233)

Why would they deport you? If U.S. insurance is going to pay, they'd probably make money off the deal.

Say you're in intensive care, and U.S. insurance pays $5,000/day (that's a low estimate of cost - ICU can cost $10k+/day). Healthcare in most of the developed world costs half of what it does here in the U.S. ($2,500/day for the same services) so bingo -- 100% profit.

Originally Posted by emma69 (Post 17294614)

A friend of mine is an administrator for a UK hospital, and they have a good number of US people coming over specifically for medical treatment, as the cost is so much less to get things done in the UK. So swings and roundabouts.

Originally Posted by ale.penazzi (Post 17336886)

Going back on topic and being a foreigner living in the US since a few years I always try to avoid the US medical system.. I ended up spending some crazy money for such simple things that I decided to fly back to Europe if anything really bad would happen to me.

It's actually cheaper, for example, to fly to Italy (my home country) have a broken tooth re-built and come back than paying for the same operation in NY..
I have an european insurance with an US extension for any emergency, way cheaper than any US medical insurance, but if I need to stay in the hospital for more than a day I'd fly back to Italy in no-time anyway.. No surprises, no insurance policies or partial coverage.. If you're sick they'll take care of you, no matter who you are...

Originally Posted by DG (Post 17372878)

To add to the US medical horror stories - here is mine. My father came to visit me with what he thought was good travel insurance.

Its the dead of winter in Boston, a Sunday, and he catches a cold. Its a cough, runny nose, no fever. Its pretty bad, and he is in his mid-70s, so I take him to an urgent care facility close by.

They take down his name and my address, and after a while the doctor sees him. Asks some questions, and my Dad says he has high blood pressure, and no Primary Care Physician in MA. The doctor immediately orders a slew of tests. My father says he is concerned about the cold, and is already aware of the other blood pressure related issues, and does not want to pay for these additional tests.

The doctor says he is required to take these tests. No one can tell my father what the cost of these tests are. At the end of taking the tests (5 hour wait), the doctor prescribes a bunch of things for the BP and related issues, and an antibiotic for the cold.

Total cost of care came to $2500 (not including the medicine) - non-negotiated rates. I got 3 different bills in the mail, 2 months after the date of the visit (one for physician services, one for lab work, one for hospital charges) - they were all on different letterheads. They were all "itemized" with strange terms which did not make sense to us non-medics. When I called up, no one in the hospital would talk to me, as I am not the patient. My father had to call from overseas, and the hospital admitted a billing mistake, and changed some of the charges.

The bottom line is it should not cost $2500 for a cold. Also, other than an emergency room or a urgent care facilities, there is no easy way for an outsider to see a doctor here in the US. There are no "walk-in" clinics, the only ones I could find were all for low income or no-insurance people run by churches or other charity organizations (Not what I was looking for).

Incidentally, my father has excellent insurance where he works, and it covers him worldwide - the only two exceptions are the US and Canada. Fortunately, his travel insurance picked up the tab.