Don
Apr 1st, 2010 by David Tompkins
After around two days at the hospital in Samui the bill was approximately $10,000. The Australian was evacuated to a private hospital in Bangkok in a charter flight that cost about $13,000. After 10 days in intensive care and four days in a ward, the traveller was billed for approximately $86,950.00 USD. The Aussie later complained that he had requested to be transferred to a “cheaper” hospital, but then he may have died as a result. I find it incredible that someone who is that sick wants to go to a cheap Thai hospital. In any event, he had to turn to his parents to pay the bills as Thai authorities threatened him with jail if the bills were not paid.
The obvious lesson of this story is to make sure that you renew your travel insurance as the insurance company will not pay claims if you forget or don’t bother to renew the insurance. I understand from article that this expatriate was in Thailand for eight years – if this was the case he should have had an expatriate health insurance policy instead of a short term travel medical policy that is really onyl meant for trips of up to 1 or 2 years at the most. This is an important lesson that any expatriate or traveller should remember. Every month we encounter people who have let their expatriate medical insurance or tarvel medical insurance expire. Some companies will renew your policy without any problems while others will not renew or demand that the client purchase a brand policy.
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