Visiting the States (USA) travel insurance
Discussion
Visiting the United States America (particularly the state of Florida)check out your travel ins carefully.
Having lived with my family in Florida for 13 years, run a business , participated in Drag- racing and other forms of motor sport, jet ski, and all sorts of hazardous pass-times I think it is important that everyone is made aware of the minefield that awaits persons unfortunate to get injuries or become ill while visiting.
If you are capable of staggering into a medical facility with or without the add of a friend/ assistant the terms of payment are calculated differently, should you be referred to a trauma centre by the Police or authorised Medic as the result of an accident where the authorities are called to the scene ,you automatically qualify the medical facility to charge a “Trauma Fee” which is not regulated or specific and totally separate from any treatment charges.
Depending on the terms of your travellers insurance this “fee” may not be recoverable when you arrive home and submit your claim !
From personnel experience ,while travelling back from out of state and requiring medical assistance for breathing /lung congestion which normally could have been treated for a cost of approx $40 by a visit to the local pharmacy, this was denied due to a prescription being required in Florida for anti-biotics.
In order to obtain a prescription a visit to the local walk-in clinic was next, but on arrival at reception, questions came up like social-security number ? Name of medical insurance ? Oh ! you are not an American passport holder
British passport holders are on our Florida State restricted list because you live in an officially designated :- “ Mad Cow Disease Area” therefore we are not allowed to dispense medication and/or treatment unless you first have a blood test but we cannot do that here as we do not have adequate test facilities in house. We have to refer you to the medical facility across town and that will require you to pay us a fee of $60 for the introduction approval.
On arrival at the med/fac ,same performance over passports / method of payment etc ,plus while the blood test was progressing someone must have been doing some research on how to further pad the bill.
The next development was the notification :- [Due to malpractice /compensation regulations currently in practice in the state of Florida] we are prevented from prescribing for all lung complaints unless a full /in depth diagnosis has been completed which will necessitate a full chest X-ray.
Finally, we were in possession of a prescription [no medication just a piece of paper] at a suggested cost of $1130, when we moaned about the cost a massive cash discount was offered which reduced the final bill to approx $750 US Dollars. We still had to go to Wall-Mart pharmacy to buy & pick-up.
With a final bill of just under $1000 all fully paid up on site at the time and receipted we submitted a claim to the travel insurance for refund of paid expenses
The request for verification/ validation of the paid-up receipts to the hospital resulted in them replying
[ We have a completely different scale of charges for insurance claims as against walk-in payments ] the outstanding balance is now in excess of $3000 even counting the part payment .
My answer was ( KISS MY DONKEY)
If you need further information please read the article in The Tampa Mail [Friday, March 7,2014]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/florida-trauma...
Having lived with my family in Florida for 13 years, run a business , participated in Drag- racing and other forms of motor sport, jet ski, and all sorts of hazardous pass-times I think it is important that everyone is made aware of the minefield that awaits persons unfortunate to get injuries or become ill while visiting.
If you are capable of staggering into a medical facility with or without the add of a friend/ assistant the terms of payment are calculated differently, should you be referred to a trauma centre by the Police or authorised Medic as the result of an accident where the authorities are called to the scene ,you automatically qualify the medical facility to charge a “Trauma Fee” which is not regulated or specific and totally separate from any treatment charges.
Depending on the terms of your travellers insurance this “fee” may not be recoverable when you arrive home and submit your claim !
From personnel experience ,while travelling back from out of state and requiring medical assistance for breathing /lung congestion which normally could have been treated for a cost of approx $40 by a visit to the local pharmacy, this was denied due to a prescription being required in Florida for anti-biotics.
In order to obtain a prescription a visit to the local walk-in clinic was next, but on arrival at reception, questions came up like social-security number ? Name of medical insurance ? Oh ! you are not an American passport holder
British passport holders are on our Florida State restricted list because you live in an officially designated :- “ Mad Cow Disease Area” therefore we are not allowed to dispense medication and/or treatment unless you first have a blood test but we cannot do that here as we do not have adequate test facilities in house. We have to refer you to the medical facility across town and that will require you to pay us a fee of $60 for the introduction approval.
On arrival at the med/fac ,same performance over passports / method of payment etc ,plus while the blood test was progressing someone must have been doing some research on how to further pad the bill.
The next development was the notification :- [Due to malpractice /compensation regulations currently in practice in the state of Florida] we are prevented from prescribing for all lung complaints unless a full /in depth diagnosis has been completed which will necessitate a full chest X-ray.
Finally, we were in possession of a prescription [no medication just a piece of paper] at a suggested cost of $1130, when we moaned about the cost a massive cash discount was offered which reduced the final bill to approx $750 US Dollars. We still had to go to Wall-Mart pharmacy to buy & pick-up.
With a final bill of just under $1000 all fully paid up on site at the time and receipted we submitted a claim to the travel insurance for refund of paid expenses
The request for verification/ validation of the paid-up receipts to the hospital resulted in them replying
[ We have a completely different scale of charges for insurance claims as against walk-in payments ] the outstanding balance is now in excess of $3000 even counting the part payment .
My answer was ( KISS MY DONKEY)
If you need further information please read the article in The Tampa Mail [Friday, March 7,2014]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/florida-trauma...
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