Health Care/hospitals -Share Your Experinces

[Call me bubba]

many past topics have been opened on "health care and hospitals"

 yet none has specially address our/your experiences,, Til now  :th_goodidea:

Please post/share your experiences of

 

#1 finding a health care provider   (how did you find him/her?) 

# 2 what was your experience w/the doctor/dentist

 

#3 if you was hospitalized how was the service?quality of care?

 

#4 if you had a "medical" emergency how was it treated/dealt with?

#5  was the cost of treatment fair?

 

#6 if you have had to take a family member(from same household) what was the experience? 

 

i am posting this as many new members are here

and nothing has been discussed on this Specific issue in the past,

by sharing what you/I/we 

know or experienced maybe this can help others understand/learn about the differences in health care related issues and how to deal effectively deal with this

[JJReyes]

I practice dental tourism. Evey trip to the Philippines includes a visit to a dentist. The facilities are excellent and so is the dentist. Prices are unbeatable. It's like getting an 80% or 90% discount compared to USA prices.

 

My sister had surgery in the Philippines and her hospital stay was two weeks. It was a private room with 24 hours private duty nurses. The nurse I met spent most of her time serving merienda to visitors. Several months later, I suffered the same medical condition requiring surgery and a hospital stay of 10 days. Two to a room and the duty nurse came if you pressed your call bottom. We later compared prices. Excluding the surgeon fees, mine was over $100,000 paid mostly by my healthcare insurance. My sister's bill was the local equivalent of $5,000. I don't know if that included discounts, but the level of her care was probably higher. The private duty nurses were on 12 hour shifts and my recollection from conversation is the charge was P1,000 per shift. My sister got two massages each day from the nurses. I didn't get massages, but a machine was attached to my legs that expanded and contracted. I guess it was some sort of massage. Jake will probably tell you he would prefer the "touchy feeley" kind from a pretty Filipina nurse.

Edited August 16, 2013 by JJReyes

[jon1]

I had two experiences in Manila.

 

The first was emergency surgery for my wife. She was complaining of abdominal pains. Went to the emergency room at Medical City in Ortigas. She had internal bleeding from an ovarian cyst that had ruptured. I had to put 20,000p down to get her admitted. Total cost for one week of private room with nurses 24/7, meals, medications, emergency room doctors/nurses and emergency surgery to remove the affected ovary and blood was only $4500. I would rate the facilities as a 9 out of 10. Doctors at a 9. Nurses at a 9.

 

 

My second experience was from a motorcycle accident I had in Manila. I had a fractured tibia (spider web cracks). Some coworkers came and transported me to St Luke’s in Quezon City as I was only 6 blocks from there. I too had to put 20,000p down to be admitted (they wanted 30,000p and I told them that I only had 20,000p on hand (my wife brought with her from the house)). I used the following; emergency room, surgery, private room, 24/7 nurses, metal plates/screws, medications, and physical therapy (3 days worth). Total cost was $10,000. I was working at the time in the Philippines and my employer had purchased Traveller’s health insurance for me. So I ended up getting reimbursed all but $500. I would rate St Luke’s as similar to Medical City in Ortigas.

 

In both cases, a family member is needed to watch over you for the things they want you to have that the hospital doesn’t provide. Like crutches for me in my experience. My wife had to purchase me a set across the street from the hospital at a medical supply store.

 

Another thing that the hospitals won’t tell you is, that you can be released by paying the hospital expenses only if you can get the doctors, nurses and specialists to waive there fee collection (you negotiate a payment plan to them direct). So I had to send my wife to all of their offices with the check out sheet to get them to sign off on my discharge and waive their fee collection. In my case at St Luke’s, I had to pay $5000 to get out (on my Credit Card). I then paid the other $5000 within 30 days to my surgeon, anesthesiologist, doctors and nurses.  My surgeon told me that if you pay the hospital the total bill, that it can take up to 60 days before they see their professional fees.

 

I am sure that either experience in the States would have cost over $50,000.

 

Based on my experience with Medical City Ortigas, I am hoping that the new Medical City being built in Clark will be similar in quality. If it is, it will become my hospital of choice as it is only a 45 minute expressway drive from my front door.

[JJReyes]

For my last surgery, I never got to see all the medical bills. Once my copay kicked in, the insurance company took over. I did get to see the charges from the anesthesiologist. It was $22,000. The surgery had lasted 10 hours and with prep time, it was 11 hours. So her charges were $2,000 per hour. I am sure she won't get that amount because the fees are negotiated with the insurance company. 

[MikeB]

My experience after my own accident here was very similar to what jon1 described except on the day of discharge I was only able to contact one of the doctors (through a secretary) to negotiate a lower fee and he refused so I paid them all in full (with credit card) because I wanted to get the hell out of there. The insurance company reimbursed me for all of it.

 

One thing I was very concerned about was the insurance company pressuring the hospital to release me, as is often the case in the US. I talked with the insurance rep and the doctors and they told me it has to be a unanimous decision among the doctors (there were 6, I think) before I would be discharged. It was a mutual decision, I told them when I was comfortable to leave and they agreed, there was no pressure from the insurance company. 

[OnMyWay]

I have been looking for a general practice or family doctor for myself here in Subic / Olongapo City, and I hope I found one last week.  I stopped by another that was recommended by a friend but I was not too impressed by his older office.  No aircon in the small waiting room and a lot of patients waiting.  From what my friend said the doc is very good, but the creature comforts mean something to me too.

 

We had been to a clinic run by a family doctor, to use the lab.  The lab was very cheap;  p75 for a urinalysis.  The office is very modern, clean, large and has good aircon.  It was actually nice to wait in there with the good aircon and a good selection of magazines and newspapers.

 

The lab has some published price lists for packages, such as cardio package, which I ended up getting.  The prices were much lower than similar packages as Baypointe and Lourdes hospitals.  Probably less than half.

 

Since the doc runs such a nice clinic, I decided to try him out for my first detailed physical since 2003.  Before I had any tests, I wanted to meet with him and see if he might be right for me.  We talked for 45 minutes and I like him a lot.  He seems to be up to date on many of the things I am interested in, and he knows a bit about alternative treatments.  My main health concern is borderline hypertension and he happy to see me treat it with natural methods.

 

My cost to talk to him for 45 minutes was p450.

 

I did the tests the next day.  The cardio panel is p1900, which includes various blood and urine test, ECG and chest x-ray.  I had 6 extra blood tests two of them were expensive because they had to send them to another lab, I assume in Manila.  I requested Vit-D testing and it was p3540.  They said it would take a week for those two, but they texted on Friday and said everything was done, after 3 days.  The in house tests can be finished same afternoon if you test in the morning.  I think the pricing was more than fair and they have all the prices in a book.

 

After I go back and talk to the doc this week, I will post an update.  I hope I have found a good general practice doc!