12.11.22
The two most common questions Kat and I get:
- What’s your favorite country?
- What do you do about health care?
Today, I’ll speak to the second one, and the reason I said “overseas” rather than Europe is because some of you may be traveling to other places besides Europe, which is our favorite hangout. But regardless of whether you are in South America, Mexico, or Asia, most of this insight is pretty close. The only exceptions would be for travelers who want to live in the more “cosmopolitan” (ie, pricey) areas, like London, Paris, Stockholm, Australia etc… Those areas are not our thing (fortunately), but what IS our thing is eastern Europe, especially the Balkans and south into Turkey.
If you aren’t sure where the Balkans are, or what they include (and there is uncertainty there) generally it would be the area from Slovenia south along the Adriatic/ Ionian Sea, and east to the Black Sea to Romania. That encompasses (generally): Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. We have been to seven of them and hope to hit the others next spring.
We recently decided that since we’ll be in Albania for several months it was time to get a medical checkup. That included a dental cleaning, and since we ain’t getting any younger, some blood tests and maybe an ultrasound would be a good idea.
The local expat community offered strong recommendations for the dentist we went to, and we were pleased to find a husband/ wife team who spoke great English and had a nice clean office in a good location. Kat needed to have one of her teeth ground down due to some past work, it probably took a half hour, and the first time we were there they did it at NO CHARGE. A few days later we went back for a thorough exam and cleaning: the price? 2000 lek, about $18 each.
Our visit to the health lab went flawlessly since they spoke great English as well, and when we asked, “Can we get tests done without seeing a doctor?” the answer was, “of course.” THAT is something we could not do in the US.
First things first, a full blood panel workup with about 30 basic tests, AND the results were printed out in English, plus they were able to interpret the results and offer feedback. Kat was a nurse, so this was familiar turf for her, and they were able to speak professionally since they had similar skills. The ultrasound tech was upstairs, and he spoke moderate English and shared while doing the tests, “normal, normal, normal…” No waiting to get results, which he printed out on the spot, and gave us copies. They included kidneys, bladder, liver, spleen, stomach, pancreas, and whatever else is in there!
I know, how much did all this cost?
The best for last: 8800 lek total for both Kat and I, so that was about $40 USD each. There was no insurance required, minimal paperwork other than asking our names and ages, and we were in an out in less than an hour.
Over the past four years Kat has had two occasions to require a paramedic ride to the hospital and a visit of several hours. One was 106€ (euro), the other about 250€.
Two questions about health that come up quite a bit, besides the ones I mentioned, include, “What about travel insurance?” and we have talked about it many times, but have declined so far. With medical costs being so reasonable we believe we spend less on visits than we would on insurance. The other query is, “What happens if you have something ‘serious’?” and for that the answer is less clear. Since we are over 65 we have Medicare, but using that would be a logistical nightmare and cost us more in travel and lodging back to the US if that was required. Even if we DID have to pay out of pocket, it would probably still be cheaper. We can only speak for ourselves, but so far, this is what works for us.
Any questions?? Oh, and the answer to the other question is probably Croatia, Turkey, or Albania! The list of “favorites” is growing, which is great since it eliminates the many that we have less interest in visiting.
