Wow. That is remarkable. 80% of Staph is pcn resistant.
Re: New Zealand broken ankle. Anyone from anywhere who has an accident while in New Zealand has all medical expenses covered. My husband had a biking accident and all expenses, including surgery, were covered in full.
This is what we get travel insurance for.
“Check your insurance.”
I think that this is very good advice. We travel to eastern Canada a lot (a rather short trip for us), and I occasionally wonder what it would cost if any of us got seriously ill while we are there.
One daughter goes to university outside of the US, but has local insurance. It is very wisely required by her university and very reasonably priced.
My son gets insurance through his school in Beirut, but it doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions. I made many phone calls and could find no company to insure him because of this condition. I told him to stay healthy while he’s abroad!
Saw a doctor in her office while we were in Dublin. All they needed to know was that we weren’t members of the Irish healthcare system, so we paid out of pocket for visit and prescription: $35. Later, I needed a doctor in the middle of the night. Physician came to the hotel at 2AM, took a urine sample and supplied the corrects meds from his bag, charged us $45.
Something is definitely wrong with our system.
@ucbalumnus — well, there’s this… https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17506232/emergency-room-bill-fees-health-insurance-baby
Yes, it would appear folks have more to fear from US surprise bills than foreign.
One of my friends had her mom badly fracture her leg in Vegas and have to be medically evacuated to her home in HNL. It cost 6 figures to transport her with a medical person so she could safely return to HNL and have her surgery at the hospital where her D was a MD. The transport company required full payment before they would transport. She had to fly 1st class with medical escort, so her leg could remain elevated and not be jarred.
Why wouldn’t she have had surgery in LV? To clarify, she chose to pay her own transport bill so she could have her D operate in HI? This wasn’t a call by her insurance company? Travelling on a long flight with a “badly broken” leg wouldn’t be medically advisable. I am surprised the airline allowed it if they had known she had actual unstable fractures.
More than 30 years ago a good friend of ours from the UK was skiing in France and broke her leg really badly. She was operated on by a French doctor not far from the resort. When she returned to the UK and saw the doctor there he told her how fortunate she was to have the surgery she had done in France. The British doctor told her if she had come back to the UK they probably would have amputated her leg.
My friend did not operate on her mom and I’m not convinced it was a good idea for her to fly with her very serious fracture. Just pointing out how medical transportation costs can be quite high.
Even if she had surgery in LV, she may have needed a medical attendant and elevated leg in 1st class for her flight.
Hmm, but it wasn’t a medically indicated evacuation at all. Someone paid for a 1st class seat and a private nurse. The cost wouldn’t be covered by any insurance because it was a foolish thing to do. Did the airline know about the fracture? Was the escort medically qualified? It is pretty questionable that anyone would agree to this, so lets assume this is back in the day?
“Even if she had surgery in LV, she may have needed a medical attendant and elevated leg in 1st class for her flight.”
If she had surgery in LV, she would still have needed the first-class seat, but she would not have been discharged from the hospital if she was so medically unstable that she needed medical personnel to accompany her on her flight home.
First class is expensive, but I don’t think it has reached the 6-figure range yet… or even 5 figures.
Just out of curiosity, I searched American Airlines flights for tomorrow in first or business class from Vegas to HI and they were under $1K. That must have been a pricey medical attendant!