As an American I’m curious what it’s like if you need to go to the doctor and how much you pay from say a broken arm to general checkup. Also list what country please
As an American I’m curious what it’s like if you need to go to the doctor and how much you pay from say a broken arm to general checkup. Also list what country please
To me it’s abhorrent that Ireland is seen as having good healthcare. That just goes to show how shitty the system is in the USA. I lived in Ireland for 4 years, had a health plan paid by the company I worked, still had to pay 50% of every visit, and to get to any specialist you need to go to your GP (€60) and then, if your GP agrees (which he might not), they will contact the specialist for you which you will have to pay for out of your own pocket (usually €150-€300 depending on specialty), that specialist will ask for exams (blood works are €80 on the GP, but specialist might require specific tests that GP doesn’t offer, I have paid around €600 for some blood exams), then you go back to the specialist (and pay €150 again for a consultation) for him to check the results of the exams and tell you there’s nothing wrong so you can do another round of exams to see if they find anything… We’re already at around €1000 and the health insurance will only return me half at some point… The max €80 in prescription medicine was quite nice though.
Sorry to tell you but you were being robbed blind.
Bloods are free at my GP. If I’m going private (after the initial consult which I did forget to mention), once I’ve been referred it’s all been covered. Public it’s all free of course.
That’s fucking wild shit. Honestly never heard of it. Not doubting you for a second. I’ve just never come across it.
Edit: I wonder did your employer just pay for an absolutely shit private cover?
Yeah, there’s a very real chance that the issue was my GP, but since you’re essentially stuck with the GP that you can get it is what it is. I don’t live there anymore so I can share these details in case it saves someone else. I lived in Dublin so obviously both are there, the GP was in Kilmainham medical center and the hospital for the specialist and expensive blood work was Black rock hearth Hermitage Clinic. I have a friend who just went through a similar situation so it’s not exclusive to me, but he does live in the same building I used to so he might go to the same GP, and that GP might have some arrangement or something with the people from that other hospital, not to mention he blocked me from seeing a cardiologist for years saying I didn’t needed it (wanted to do a checkup because my entire father’s side family died of heart related conditions, and after the ridiculous amount of money it costed to see the other specialist I just let it go.
I’m saddened to think it could all have been due to a bad GP, my time in Ireland was very badly affected by these experiences with medical care. And speaking with friends they had had similar experiences so I never thought it could have been a bad GP.
The health plan from the company wasn’t bad, at least I don’t think it was, but I don’t have any parameters to compare it to. I worked for 2 companies while I lived there and both used the same health plan. I don’t remember what it was, but at the specialist they said that I needed to pay and then talk to my health plan, and the health plan only refunded half of the value. I still work for the same company but on a different country, and here the health plan seems to cover everything, so I doubt they would have a good plan on one country and a bad one on the other, but it could happen.