Has anyone in the US considered flying overseas to get treatment done? Many hospitals in third world countries are cheaper and more humane.
Sure, you lose out on the ability to sue them if things go awry but where is the tradeoff between six figure debt at an old age vs paying $10000 to get the whole thing done?
Not intentionally but this happened to me. I have bad adult asthma and spent 6hr in an my in network ER (on the advice of my pcp) a couple of years ago. Got some meds a chest X-ray (turns out I had pneumonia!) and got sent home stablized. my bill for the 6h (with BCBS insurance) was ~$3k. Last year I was in Japan for 2 weeks and again got sick. After avoiding it for a few days I again went to the ER and got the same treatments/test (this time it was only the flu). Bill (no insurance at all) $200. Round trip direct flight to Japan from my house is $1300 and takes less then a day. Makes me think what I might want to do next time...
> Has anyone in the US considered flying overseas to get treatment done?
I think a lot of people do but in a lot of situations you need to deal with things right now.
If you get a heart attack, you can't just hit the pause button on life, crack open Google and start searching for "best heart attack treatment center outside of the US", then research things, book the travel arrangements and take a long flight.
A lot of immigrants do that, but you have to know the local system of where you'll be treated (that's why it's mostly immigrants that do it).
For what I'm readying, for a lot of non-life-threatening care, it's way cheaper to fly here (Uruguay), have treatment, stay a month, and then fly back, than stay one DAY in the U.S. - a plus is that treatment will likely be better.
Sure, you lose out on the ability to sue them if things go awry but where is the tradeoff between six figure debt at an old age vs paying $10000 to get the whole thing done?