Affordable Medical Services--Overseas

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/TravelingAfarToCutSurgeryCosts.aspx

This is an article on the emerging field of "medical tourism", which is when you go to some country other than your own in order to receive medical treatment.  It has some recommendations for agencies to use that broker all of the planning for your trip and procedure, and it also has a link to a national organization that accredits hospitals and doctors in other countries; in short, it says that these facilities and doctors are as good as any in the U.S.  Given that IBS requires a lot of testing, going overseas may be the only way to afford tests and/or treatments for people without health insurance.  There's also the fact that there's a doctor shortage in all fields in the U.S., so you may can go to another country and come back before you could even see a GI in the U.S. (much less in the UK, which seems to have even worse waiting periods).  And you may just find that a foreign doctor has different ideas on how to treat IBS; after all, bowel complaints, especially D, are a lot more common in a country like India or China than in the U.S.  At the very least, I think you would be taken more seriously. 

Well, when I had my tubes tied, the total bill was like $4,000 something, of which the insurance paid half. You know, if I could have surgery for $2,000, I could pay that out of pocket. If they would just charge regular people the minimum they'll accept from the Blue Crosses of the world, then a lot more people could afford to self-insure. Given that the current government wants to accomplish just that, it looks like they would pass a law that you can't charge an uninsured person more than you would accept in payment from any insurance company.

Oh, Canyon, make sure to tell any of your friends of Medicare-age about the new semi-scam that's going around. My mother works in home health and said it's appaling rampant. Apparently these sales reps for HMOs go around to old people and tell them how wonderful their insurance program is and weedle these poor old people into dropping their Medicare for this HMO. Then the bills start coming in; huge premiums and even bigger deductibles. My mother said one woman they had saved from her HMO had a $1,000 deductible for hospital coverage alone. She had already met that, but now needed home health care and that was a separate $1,000 deductible that she had to meet. Not that it much mattered, since there was not a doctor, hospital, home health care agency, or even a DRUG STORE within 45 miles of her house that accepted her insurance. Mama said some were worse; she'd seen people with these HMOs not have any medical services whatsoever, even a drug store, within 80 miles of their house. She said her office had a case worker who does nothing but help old people get switched back over to Medicare; it's the only way to get their home health care paid for. What's more, it takes a month to get switched back over to Medicare. So set the word out to never, ever give up your Medicare. This isn't the same thing as supplemental insurance; this cancels your Medicare all together. And it's actually legal, even if the insurance agents are purposefully confusing, misleading and lying to the old people to get them to switch. And the first person that's probably going to approach you about switching insurance is probably going to be the company that provides your prescription drugs. So be wary!