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| Does that hospital say John Hopkins? |
One of the things we all are concerned about is medical and dental care, and of course living in a foreign country raises the issue a little higher for people. What kind of care can I expect? Do the nurses and doctors speak English? What does it cost? etc.. Well, I am here to tell you that the care here in Panama is top notch at more than 1/2 off the US prices. Many Panamanian doctors are educated in the US then they come back to Panama to serve their own people so the quality of care is terrific and the prices are well, more than affordable - even without insurance.
Example, we recently went to the dentist to get the usual 6 month cleaning, the dentist was educated in Pennsylvania, had a practice in Florida, then moved back to his native Panama. Now we do not have any dental insurance here in Panama so we pay as we go, the cleanings cost us $15 each, now this was a new customer cleaning so going forward we have to pay full price of $45. I remember the last dental insurance I had was costing me about $44/month for a family plan. Moving on, my lovely spouse needed a new crown, cost $750, back home about $1500. Now 50% of the $1500 back home would have been paid by the insurance I had so you would think the cost was break even, BUT remember I was paying $44/month, every month for years just in case. Also, here in Panama if you are on a Pension visa or are a woman over 55 and a man over 60 you would also receive a 15-25% discount on top of the cheaper prices.
Turning to medical care, no first hand experience but have some friends that have needed some major things done here in way of surgeries and the treatments they received and the prices they paid, well you guessed it. Surgeries went well and pricing was far cheaper. I do know you can get blood work here for under $20, and they check for everything. And like dental, medical comes with discounts to for the pensionado's and jubilado's (woman 55+, men 60+)
Take another look at living in Panama, it may be well worth it.
2 comments:
Just found your blog, thanks for the great tips and info. May I ask you your dentists name? I think we paid the "gringo price" when we got our teeth cleaned.
Dr Sofar was his name and he is located in Marbella. There are many coupons out there for dentists cleaning, this is how we found Dr Sofar
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