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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    crown of the continent
    Posts
    13,947

    medical tourism-

    Friend blew the crap out of her knee, with no health insurance, i don't know all the details and i'm sure i can find all about obama care over on polyass, but bottom line she was looking at $16k here, if she got accepted into a low-income discount program. Mexico, top-shelf hospital, under $8k. Stoked with the surgeon, supposedly procedure went well, but didn't come out of anesthesia easily. Was released next day and blew up into full-on pneumonia, back in to ICU for 3 days, at $3500/day. Now in a mid-level hospital for a couple more days, but being told no flying for two weeks. All of a sudden it's not a great deal anymore...

    I've heard of folks getting good results on dental work and other stuff in MX and CR, but this will make me have a lot of second thoughts...
    Something about the wrinkle in your forehead tells me there's a fit about to get thrown
    And I never hear a single word you say when you tell me not to have my fun
    It's the same old shit that I ain't gonna take off anyone.
    and I never had a shortage of people tryin' to warn me about the dangers I pose to myself.

    Patterson Hood of the DBT's

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    1,174
    You ought to have 3rd 4th and 5th thoughts.2 friends went to "top shelf" hospitals in Thailand. Staph infection in the neck nearly killed one, staph infection in the other one's knee did kill his knee.
    picador

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    33,546
    Quote Originally Posted by Tye 1on View Post
    I've heard of folks getting good results on dental work
    It took weeks to paddle that red phone box across the Atlantic but the teeth were totally worth it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Where everything's a dollar
    Posts
    2,683
    You take your life into your hands anytime you venture into any hospital. They're full of sick people loaded with all sorts of infections and caregivers who know all about proper hygiene practices but often fail to follow them. Definitely worse in the 3rd world but it ain't pretty here either.
    The Sheriff is near!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    truckee
    Posts
    23,111
    I have no experience, just what I've read in the popular press, but my understanding that at least some of the 3rd world care is of good quality, good enough and cheap enough for the insurance companies to send willing patients there and pay for the cost of a family member accompanying them, both of them to stay for a while after discharge and still save money. The best docs and hospitals in those countries can make a lot more treating tourists than locals. I have worked with the chief of pediatric surgery at the University of Mexico City and he was superb (his patients were Mexican nationals, not tourists; he was in the US to collaborate with an American surgeon on an operation they were developing.). Seems to me the hard part would be for a prospective patient, especially one pursuing care on their own and not through an insurer, to vet a hospital and doctor--success rates, infection rates, that sort of thing. Not that it's easy to do that in the US.

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