sir_eccles

As others have said, the quality of care my family and I have received is second to none. Awesome doctors and nurses.

The billing departments on the other hand never seem capable of sending out a correct bill and you end up in a circular phone call hell.

Call up insurer and they tell you they can't do anything about it you'll have to call the provider, they say the problem is at the insurer end and so on ad infinitum. I don't think either side are willingly moving towards a solution and just hope you give in and pay up.

I should add that the people in the call centers of both billing departments and insurers are generally very nice and trying their best but it's usually a case of "the computer says no".

Jerseygirl

The problem is Rete even with good insurance if you are living hand to mouth the copays etc are just too much for some...and they have to think long and hard before going to see a doctor.

Also let's not forget the super duper healthcare can be snatched away from you in an instant if you lose your job. Which unfortunately seems to happen all too often here when you are sick and need healthcare the most.

Remember Thyd he loved living in Florida...his family had really embraced the American way of life? His wife had health insurance for the family...she was a nurse. She got sick...the hospital fired her. Yes she was fired by the hospital for being sick!!! Without going into detail...they got into a lot of debt and had no alternative but to move back to the UK and move in with relatives. That's two adults and three children who previously...in the UK and here had a good standard of living...who left the US with nothing but debts and had to live with relatives.

markwm

I had to spend a week in hospital many years ago: it was like being in a 5 star hotel. Without good insurance I would have had fewer choices and, most probably, would not have been able to get the treatment I needed in quite the same way.

Having said that, if you have insurance at least you do have choices; pretty much the same as having private in the UK.

So far, my experiences have been reasonably positive.

Just bear in mind that unlike the UK, medicine here is a business and doctors have no hesitation in ordering all sorts of tests or referrals to specialists that you may not really need and that someone has to pay for - if you have coverage through a company probably not really going to impact you - if you are paying for it yourself it might impact your premiums.

Noorah101

The US medical system is the only one I've ever known, and it works well for me. I don't have anything to compare it too, but I can say I've never had a problem with getting seen by doctors (my GP and specialists when needed), getting the care I need, medicines I need, etc. Thankfully never been hospitalized as an adult, only see the doctor once or twice a year for routine stuff, and only take 1 prescription drug. Have had great insurance through my employer for the past 24 years. No complaints from me.

Rene

Nutek

The treatment I have had here has been excellent (well, Hospital anyway... Doctor not so much).

The system by which I was able to get that treatment, however, scares the crap out of me.

SEL_boy

This is exactly what I was saying earlier.

You are lucky enough to be rich -- no matter how empty your wallet might feel every month, if you have had flawless medical care for 24 years with no complaints, you are rich, compared to millions and millions of people living in America who have little or no access to medical care.

Remember, 62% of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.

Steve_

I put a thread up on here before about this, but I've been ill in several different US jurisdictions at different times and it varies from appalling to excellent. It's a big country. California was the best and Florida was the worst, imx.

Something Canadian widows and widowers often do is get married to an American and then move to Florida or Arizona. Ergo, they qualify for spousal Medicare and Social Security benefits. Which may sound like a ripoff of the US taxpayer, but hey, nothing to stop an American moving to Canada and doing the same thing. So that's a "benefit".

You have to have 40 qualifying quarters of employment to get Medicare when you're 65 - all US citizens are eligible, but not without paying Part A premiums ($441 per month and that's only Part A), which is why you need the employment. This seems to often catch out people who think they can get their kids to sponsor them in and then retire to Florida for example.

The biggest problem imo is the cost of prescription drugs in the US which is absurdly high because they don't use a national buying programme like the NHS and Health Canada do for common drugs. So often things are four or five times more expensive. Yes your plan may have drug coverage but rarely do they cover more than 50% of the cost if it's something you need routinely over time.

That might sound great but if it costs 4 times as much and they pay half, it costs twice as much as it would in Canada (and that assumes you have no prescription drug plan in Canada, which you would, and the NHS has their own plan for that too).

The other big problem in the US are payroll taxes - everyone goes on about how much lower the taxes are in the US but payroll taxes are really high. Social Security is 6.2% up to $113,000 and Medicare has no limit but is 1.45% - if you're self-employed you pay both halves, so that's 15.3%

So say for example you come over to the US on E-2 as many people do and are essentially self-employed, you're paying 15.3% payroll taxes. You stay, for say, eight years and then leave.

You get nothing, because you don't meet the 40 qualifying quarters for social security and you've got to be in the US to get Medicare.

Say you stay for eleven years, okay then you might get something if you're old enough, but only if you stay in the US, which is obviously hard to do in a non-immigrant category: http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answ...urity-benefits

Bink

The actual medical is fine, it's the billing systems (if you can call them that) that are messed up.

I got an explanation of benefit a couple of weeks ago saying that blood work that my wife had done by her in-network OB/GYN was out of network and I was liable for $6.5k! It wasn't the best of timing as it came just after we'd got some bad news as a result of that visit but I called up the insurance company and was basically like wtf?! All they would say to me was they had covered their portion and the rest was up to me (I would normally rate my insurance as very good but I was fuming with them).

After 3 days of messages to the OB/GYN office to see why they had sent blood work out of network without telling me (and why the fee for said blood work was in excess of $7.5k - the insurance kicked in $1k hence where the $6.5k came from) and they were like, oh you'll only get billed $25 for that, they just up the price to recoup costs from the insurer. Apparently most people don't get their EOB so quickly.

This just highlights to me how messed up the system is. It's all inflated and fictitious and it's an absolute nightmare trying to figure it all out. I'm really glad we have good insurance which takes care of things most of the time.

Bink

This strikes a bit of a chord with me. My Brother-in-law was involved in a very nasty car wreck early 2012 and is quadriplegic as a result. He's 31 and fortunately he was able to get coverage on my Mother-in-laws insurance policy (very rare that an insurer would do that for someone that age). Sadly she lost her job and with it he has lost insurance coverage.

Steve_

In addition to the appalling service, I also received a bill once when I was in hospital in Florida that was clearly intended for my insurance company but I wasn't insured - so I got it. I assume they thought I was insured because I was white, not sure, but anyway, the bill seemed to list everything that happened in the ER that day, for example it included a breast biopsy.

I went back to the hospital and claimed and a very embarrassed doctor eventually got the bill reissued, and it went from a dozen or so pages long to one page with three things on it.

Sally Redux

No.

It is a major minus about living here, unless you are happy to stick your head in the sand.

MsElui

my son has adhd which is well controlled by2 tablets a day. Hes doing well at school and is in the gifted category for maths. Without the meds he cant sit on a chair for 30 seconds without moving.

the meds cost me $391 for 1 month supply last week. I know this because of some quirky thing with my insurance this month where i am between deductible and co-pay and need to pay for this and claim back.

If we couldn't claim back id have to be stopping this med or looking for cheaper alternatives (neither are available as generic and this combo is the best one we found for him - least bad effects). It sucks in my mind that the most effective medicine might be too expensive to use and we couldn't use it because of the cost issues. We wouldn't have that issue in the UK.

Songbird

Well the cappuccino machine in my local hospital canteen kicks ass! PLUS - you get full 20oz refills for just 70 cents! The one good thing I used to look forward to when we were frequent fliers!

Actually I am being a bit disingenuous here because I have to say hand on heart that the treatment I have received under the BCCTP Act (Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program ) has been literally life-saving and all free. I am in the middle of doing a blurb on it as a FYI for peeps on here - expect to be done in the next few days

Sally Redux

I suppose the point is that one would hope this would be the case in any developed country.

Songbird

Yep true, and most developed countries do offer such similar treatment. The difference in this case though is that the treatment options / technology is, it would appear from the anecdotal evidence of the various BC boards I am active on, more advanced. The problem as always seems to be the case with medical care in the USA (and what imo makes the system more barbarically cruel for those reliant upon it) is that they have the technology and expertise to treat so many conditions and yet many are denied access to it because they simply can't afford it