HealthCare International?

[Lennie]

Any feed back on HealthCare International?

Leaving our full time jobs to sail/travel/play and work from time to time when needed. Need to have some sort of catastrophic coverage while we are out of the country and in the US.
I don't want to start a discussion on healthcare/politics, just feedback and maybe some recommendations for other plans to look into.
Thanks,

Lennie

[rebel heart]

We still have US coverage for our family, and our policy covers international expenses the same as if stateside. What I've found is that generally the costs are so low it's not even worth submitting claim paperwork and dealing with the hassle. Usually it's cheaper than the deductible. Then it gets interesting with some medications that in other countries you don't need a prescription for, or you can get the prescription from the pharmacist, which is different than how the US healthcare stuff works.

In general, I'd do this:

- pay out of pocket for international medical costs if you're traveling mainly in inexpensive areas (developing and third world countries)
- have DAN international. it's not a panacea, but it's worked well for most people.
- have a credit card that you can put a flight on to get back to the states
- have US coverage that works when you're back in the states. those policies are cheap if you get ones that require you to be out of the country for ~300 days a year.

We've had surgeries, child birth, pre-natal, dental (including surgery), infections, dermatology, lab work, and pediatric care done in three countries now, mostly Mexico.

In general most people I've talked to find that 90% of your medical care is handled quite well by non-US physicians. It's when you get into tricky procedures or rare diseases that have very limited pools of talented care providers that you want to be in the first world, which is generally where those care providers are as well.

[zeehag]

physicians in central america are well trained and many of them were trained in usa. this is the after college and after med school [pair up with hospitals for residency. guess how i know this.. remember--i worked at cedars-sinai medical center for some years, where some of these mds were residents....
the international language of medicine is guess what---ENGLISH!!!!!! omg..does that mean these physicians might be able to discuss reasonably your condition ....in english---many dont wish to, so learn the language of the nation in which you cruise.

i f you wish to be treated for a tropical illness, what better place to seek physician for assistance than here in the tropics, where these diseases and illnesses are common..rodlmao.....

if i were skeeter bit with dengue, i would rather be in mexico where they deal with it more often than in west coast usa where they cannot figger out what you have, therefore it is imaginary....rodlmao.

friend here got dengue, took him 30 usd for diagnosis including lab testing, and medicine. top that.

[Teknav]

Most medicines, the generic equivalent of their US counterpart, are very cheap overseas. Not all pain killers are available for sale everywhere, though; hydrocodone/Vicodin is one of them.

Mauritz