I’m looking for a bit of advice and experiences here, facts not thoughts please. I would be particularly interested in any native Thai’s experiences. It’s a long story but I’ve tried to be concise while containing the main parts. There are many other facets to it involving meeting with police and the guilty party but my big gripe here is with the  (hospital name removed by Moderator)  their standards, greed and tactics to extort

 

I was in a bad motorcycle accident, crossing a clear roundabout when a pick up truck came into my path at a fairly rapid speed. Of course death comes to mind instantly but somehow I was able to break and swerve to have a side impact with the pick up’s passenger door and front faring. Somehow I survived the accident with just a severely fractured collarbone, a few bumps and scrapes and a limp. The Gods were on my side, I was rushed to a local military hospital by ambulance.

 

My motorcycle insurers investigator was quick in getting to me in hospital checking my condition and confirming everything will be ok for my motorcycle and my medical treatment. He was in discussions with the police, saw the CCTV footage and scattered motorcycle. Both he and the police confirmed that the pick up driver was in total violation and that the motorcyclist had take the correct steps in approaching and entering the roundabout etc.

 

I was patched up after Xrays, CT scans etc and released from hospital with a surgeon consultation the following Monday. At the consultation the surgeon informed me of my injury, a severely fractured collarbone, and explained they do not have the capabilities to operate on me and that if I had insurance then I should go to a nearby private hospital, (hospital name removed by Moderator) . Failing that he suggested cheaper options with good private facilities within two hours drive at Phetchaburi and Ratchaburi provinces.

 

I travelled up to (hospital name removed by Moderator) and consulted a surgeon. He asked my medical history, and if I had insurance cover, I complied fully with his requests. He conformed a figure in the region of ฿250,000 which I felt my combined insurance would cover adequately. Back home one hour later I receive correspondence from the Cashier s Dept with an estimated treatment cost of ฿270,000 - ฿300,000. I queried this and asked for this figure to be checked thoroughly because the difference is as much as 20% in the space of one hour, No one called me back, In hindsight I should have walked away at this point. Pain bearing down on me changed my mind along with the importance of the urgent need for correctional surgery.

 

The hospital cashier sent an email asking for all my insurance cover policies, police report, passport and couple of other items. Everything was sent over by email. I then received a call soon afterwards telling me they have all the documents required and my insurance cover is up to ฿330,000 so I am fully covered for the operation. I was then invited to make a hospital submission for operation. I stated that they had to deal with the compulsory vehicle insurance from the guilty party towards the cost of treatment. This was ignored as the police report was not detailed enough in their view. This was morally wrong but I had little time to argue and I stupidly agreed knowing the likelihood that the (hospital name removed by Moderator)would push estimate levels to greed levels.

 

I was submitted to hospital one day later and went through the operation successfully. The whole hospital experience was less than I had expected, disappointing really and the end result, just despicable.

 

Moving on to discharge day after a one night stay in hospital. Surgeon visited me in my designated room, asked how I felt etc. I said surprisingly good but of course I was jacked up with all sorts of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and painkillers nevertheless I felt ok but very tired from the constant nursing interruptions during the night. He stated OK we can discharge you today but rest for the next two hours when the cashier will contact you about discharging and settlement, you will be able to go home at 1pm, no problem I said. I got no rest there were nine nursing and domestic interruptions within the next hour and I lost count after that, just disgraceful.

 

After 12pm noon I received a visit from the cashier asking me a few questions about hypertension and how the accident occurred. I explained you have the police report and full medical history, your nurses have taken my blood pressure on more than twenty occasions over the past 24 hours nevertheless I will write down the lead up to the accident. She thanked me and stated I have to stay in the room for the next 60-90 minutes while they tie everything up. OK, I felt nervous, like they thought I was lying. 3pm passes (three hours later not 90 minutes) and I wander one floor down to the Cashiers office. Nurses attempted to stop me leaving the floor I was on, I told them to not treat me like a penned animal, open the security door or i’ll find a way through it. They opened it. Incarceration came to mind at this point and I was raging. I stepped into the cashiers office to find they had not yet completed finalisation on one of my insurance policies. I told them to hurry up I wanted to go home and as I cannot drive I need to arrange for my wife to come and pick up our parked car to take me home.

 

4pm passes and still no word, I see the incarceration plan and now fully expect there to be a twist. I take my bags and clothes and again wander down to the Cashier’s Office without security door interruption this time. I tell them I am going home if things are not finalised now. They are holding me against my will and they will not get far doing that. At this point they tell me the final insurance policy from which they were subtracting ฿66,000 had questions about my health and they want me to pay this amount to be discharged. I explained you have had all my health and accident documentation for around 72-96 hours now, you checked prior to inviting me to the hospital for treatment, or did you? Who has been irresponsible? as someone has been? I refused to pay, I didn’t have the funds to pay and had I the funds I still would not have paid. You could have rejected my hospital submission and I could have gone to another cheaper private or indeed public hospital. You now have the problem as you advised me everything was good. If you have done your jobs correctly perhaps this would not have occurred. The guilt on all three of their faces led me to believe they knew they’d made a huge mistake. I mentioned there bowed heads and lack of understanding over humiliating me. I told them you pay for your own mistakes or you sue the other insurer for false information. It’s really that simple.

 

I told them I stayed twenty minutes drive away, they can visit me at home but I’m leaving this building now, no one will stop me, I am being incarcerated against my will. The nursing staff outside the Cashier’s Office obviously felt the commotion next door was fun as they were all laughing loudly. I told them to shut up and open the goddam security door. I am a powerfully built guy and when the little security guards attempted to whisk me back into the building I told them to back off and step aside or I would contact the police.  They indeed backed off.   I dumped my stuff in my car and painfully drove home.

 

An utterly horrible experience at the hands of (hospital name removed by Moderator). When I got home I complained bitterly to the lead Cashier office management. 18 or so hours later I have head nothing from them. They’re a despicable organisation. I would very much appreciate any similar instances anyone has faced. I am worn out tired, in severe pain and just want to nail these charlatans to the floor for their behaviour.

 

Where do I stand, what, if anything, have I done wrong, where do I go from here?

Well, based on some previous experiences, that all sounds quite normal.... I'd concentrate on getting well again.

Lucky to get out!

Hospital training motto:  "A patient cured is a customer lost"

This is not a personal story but it's about one of my staff who was working remotely in Hua Hin. 

She reported to me one day that she was feeling unwell but thought it was just a bad case of the flu and would rest up that day. However her condition detoriated rapidly so she went to the hospital you mentioned. She told them she suspected it may be malaria but they refused to test for it, saying it was 'unlikely' and sending her home with some antibiotics. However, her condition deteriorated further so she checked herself back in, insisting on a malaria test, however it came back negative. Still her condition detoriated so they eventually started doing other tests only to find out she had severe, life-threatening sepsis. At this time they said they were ill-equipped to deal with this and she would have to go by ambulance to MedPark hospital in Bangkok, however they wouldnt do this until money was paid for the ambulance. At this stage she was nearly unconscious and incapacitated and I don't think it's too dramatic to say she was dying.

I was in contact with her this whole time so I stepped in and had to personally pay for the ambulance otherwise they would have just kept her there. There was no thought of 'let's get her saved and worry about the bill later', the money was demanded or she was going nowhere. She was rushed to MedPark where as well as being diagnosed with sepsis they also found jaundice and anaemia. She also had a collapsed lung an enlarged spleen (3 x the size), an enlarged and dangerous liver and fluid on her lungs.. We were told (after a few days) that had she not got there when she did, there was a very good chance she would have died. As it stood, she was in ICU for 2 weeks and took over 3 months to fully recover.

I agree with your sentiments - disgusting behaviour from a place that is supposed to save lives, not try and kill you over the sake of an ambulance bill. And by the way, the ambulance was only something like 60- 80,000 THB (can't quite remember the exact cost) , but whatever it was, it was a small price to pay to save someones life. 

Reading these story's makes me thankful for the NHS.

21 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

This is not a personal story but it's about one of my staff who was working remotely in Hua Hin. 

She reported to me one day that she was feeling unwell but thought it was just a bad case of the flu and would rest up that day. However her condition detoriated rapidly so she went to the hospital you mentioned. She told them she suspected it may be malaria but they refused to test for it, saying it was 'unlikely' and sending her home with some antibiotics. However, her condition deteriorated further so she checked herself back in, insisting on a malaria test, however it came back negative. Still her condition detoriated so they eventually started doing other tests only to find out she had severe, life-threatening sepsis. At this time they said they were ill-equipped to deal with this and she would have to go by ambulance to MedPark hospital in Bangkok, however they wouldnt do this until money was paid for the ambulance. At this stage she was nearly unconscious and incapacitated and I don't think it's too dramatic to say she was dying.

I was in contact with her this whole time so I stepped in and had to personally pay for the ambulance otherwise they would have just kept her there. There was no thought of 'let's get her saved and worry about the bill later', the money was demanded or she was going nowhere. She was rushed to MedPark where as well as being diagnosed with sepsis they also found jaundice and anaemia. She also had a collapsed lung an enlarged spleen (3 x the size), an enlarged and dangerous liver and fluid on her lungs.. We were told (after a few days) that had she not got there when she did, there was a very good chance she would have died. As it stood, she was in ICU for 2 weeks and took over 3 months to fully recover.

I agree with your sentiments - disgusting behaviour from a place that is supposed to save lives, not try and kill you over the sake of an ambulance bill. And by the way, the ambulance was only something like 60- 80,000 THB (can't quite remember the exact cost) , but whatever it was, it was a small price to pay to save someones life. 

I never even had to pay for the excellent crew and ambulance that took me from crash site to the military hospital within 3 or 4 minutes of the incident.  Some people help out of goodness, others out of greed 😞

 

 

They are money making machines.

 

Dealing with people, often in distress, makes it easy to scam, inflate, pressure, con.

 

Been there, experienced it and literally paid the price.......but having the said that, sounds a little contradictory, the medical care was exemplary.

I can confirm, if not as intrusively as the OP, but a similar experience and fortunately I quickly realized that if I stay there I would be taken on an expensive trip with "great actors" so I did as OP walked out and I will never set foot in that hospital again. Btw, went back home a bit later and the diagnose was totally different to what they come up with here included the treatment they want me to go through here.

Felt

Post title and content have been edited to remove name of the hospital in keeping with Thailand's defamation laws.

 

OP:  you did a number of things "wrong", not least becoming a bit paranoid over what sounds like typical, if inefficient, processing. Not really clear how much was the hospital's inefficiency vs the insurer, may have been both. 

 

My last hospitalization (different hospital, different city) it also took a full 6 hours, and multiple complaints from me, to process the insurance claim. This delay did not make any money for the hospital (once they start the processing, all charges have already been compiled). I did not view it as greed or any sort of plot though I was annoyed, of course. But this is very typical. And your case would have been more complicated given that it was a motor vehicle accident.

 

What to do now? At the moment I would suggest, nothing. Leave it between the hospital and in the insurer(s). If and only if, you receive a bill from the hospital, at that point insist on a detailed itemized bill showing all charges and what was paid by the insurer. Depending on what this  shows, you might then either contest parts of the bill with the hospital OR make a complaint to the OIC about the insurer (assuming it is a Thai company, otherwise then applicable complaint channel. Or both.  https://www.oic.or.th/en/

 

 

7 hours ago, Daniel4 said:

was in a bad motorcycle accident, crossing a clear roundabout when a pick up truck came into my path at a fairly rapid speed. Of course death comes to mind instantly but somehow I was able to break and swerve to have a side impact with the pick up’s passenger door and front faring. Somehow I survived the accident with just a severely fractured collarbone, a few bumps and scrapes and a limp. The Gods were on my side, I was rushed to a local military hospital by ambulance.

Interesting report,

I was subject to a hit and run when driving my m/c 2 years back.

Similar injuries, broken collarbone, 5 broken ribs, collapsed lung, scrapes.

2 nights in a government hospital, 1 month in a wheelchair, 3 months outpatient with strapped arm, 1 month physio. My injuries were so severe they informed my wife I might not survive. I had to sleep downstairs for a month as I couldn't walk.

 

13,500bht paid direct by government minimum insurance after my misses made a police report and gave it to the hospital. Zero input from me (not that I could do anything apart from sit in a wheelchair), they set up a tab and collected as and when from the gov ins, I just signed at the cashier after every visit.

 

Not sure why you would need an MRI or a surgeon.

But the private hospitals love to push up charges.

If you could walk out and carry a bag it couldn't have been that bad.

8 hours ago, Daniel4 said:

I’m looking for a bit of advice and experiences here, facts not thoughts please. I would be particularly interested in any native Thai’s experiences. It’s a long story but I’ve tried to be concise while containing the main parts. There are many other facets to it involving meeting with police and the guilty party but my big gripe here is with the  (hospital name removed by Moderator)  their standards, greed and tactics to extort

 

I was in a bad motorcycle accident, crossing a clear roundabout when a pick up truck came into my path at a fairly rapid speed. Of course death comes to mind instantly but somehow I was able to break and swerve to have a side impact with the pick up’s passenger door and front faring. Somehow I survived the accident with just a severely fractured collarbone, a few bumps and scrapes and a limp. The Gods were on my side, I was rushed to a local military hospital by ambulance.

 

My motorcycle insurers investigator was quick in getting to me in hospital checking my condition and confirming everything will be ok for my motorcycle and my medical treatment. He was in discussions with the police, saw the CCTV footage and scattered motorcycle. Both he and the police confirmed that the pick up driver was in total violation and that the motorcyclist had take the correct steps in approaching and entering the roundabout etc.

 

I was patched up after Xrays, CT scans etc and released from hospital with a surgeon consultation the following Monday. At the consultation the surgeon informed me of my injury, a severely fractured collarbone, and explained they do not have the capabilities to operate on me and that if I had insurance then I should go to a nearby private hospital, (hospital name removed by Moderator) . Failing that he suggested cheaper options with good private facilities within two hours drive at Phetchaburi and Ratchaburi provinces.

 

I travelled up to (hospital name removed by Moderator) and consulted a surgeon. He asked my medical history, and if I had insurance cover, I complied fully with his requests. He conformed a figure in the region of ฿250,000 which I felt my combined insurance would cover adequately. Back home one hour later I receive correspondence from the Cashier s Dept with an estimated treatment cost of ฿270,000 - ฿300,000. I queried this and asked for this figure to be checked thoroughly because the difference is as much as 20% in the space of one hour, No one called me back, In hindsight I should have walked away at this point. Pain bearing down on me changed my mind along with the importance of the urgent need for correctional surgery.

 

The hospital cashier sent an email asking for all my insurance cover policies, police report, passport and couple of other items. Everything was sent over by email. I then received a call soon afterwards telling me they have all the documents required and my insurance cover is up to ฿330,000 so I am fully covered for the operation. I was then invited to make a hospital submission for operation. I stated that they had to deal with the compulsory vehicle insurance from the guilty party towards the cost of treatment. This was ignored as the police report was not detailed enough in their view. This was morally wrong but I had little time to argue and I stupidly agreed knowing the likelihood that the (hospital name removed by Moderator)would push estimate levels to greed levels.

 

I was submitted to hospital one day later and went through the operation successfully. The whole hospital experience was less than I had expected, disappointing really and the end result, just despicable.

 

Moving on to discharge day after a one night stay in hospital. Surgeon visited me in my designated room, asked how I felt etc. I said surprisingly good but of course I was jacked up with all sorts of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and painkillers nevertheless I felt ok but very tired from the constant nursing interruptions during the night. He stated OK we can discharge you today but rest for the next two hours when the cashier will contact you about discharging and settlement, you will be able to go home at 1pm, no problem I said. I got no rest there were nine nursing and domestic interruptions within the next hour and I lost count after that, just disgraceful.

 

After 12pm noon I received a visit from the cashier asking me a few questions about hypertension and how the accident occurred. I explained you have the police report and full medical history, your nurses have taken my blood pressure on more than twenty occasions over the past 24 hours nevertheless I will write down the lead up to the accident. She thanked me and stated I have to stay in the room for the next 60-90 minutes while they tie everything up. OK, I felt nervous, like they thought I was lying. 3pm passes (three hours later not 90 minutes) and I wander one floor down to the Cashiers office. Nurses attempted to stop me leaving the floor I was on, I told them to not treat me like a penned animal, open the security door or i’ll find a way through it. They opened it. Incarceration came to mind at this point and I was raging. I stepped into the cashiers office to find they had not yet completed finalisation on one of my insurance policies. I told them to hurry up I wanted to go home and as I cannot drive I need to arrange for my wife to come and pick up our parked car to take me home.

 

4pm passes and still no word, I see the incarceration plan and now fully expect there to be a twist. I take my bags and clothes and again wander down to the Cashier’s Office without security door interruption this time. I tell them I am going home if things are not finalised now. They are holding me against my will and they will not get far doing that. At this point they tell me the final insurance policy from which they were subtracting ฿66,000 had questions about my health and they want me to pay this amount to be discharged. I explained you have had all my health and accident documentation for around 72-96 hours now, you checked prior to inviting me to the hospital for treatment, or did you? Who has been irresponsible? as someone has been? I refused to pay, I didn’t have the funds to pay and had I the funds I still would not have paid. You could have rejected my hospital submission and I could have gone to another cheaper private or indeed public hospital. You now have the problem as you advised me everything was good. If you have done your jobs correctly perhaps this would not have occurred. The guilt on all three of their faces led me to believe they knew they’d made a huge mistake. I mentioned there bowed heads and lack of understanding over humiliating me. I told them you pay for your own mistakes or you sue the other insurer for false information. It’s really that simple.

 

I told them I stayed twenty minutes drive away, they can visit me at home but I’m leaving this building now, no one will stop me, I am being incarcerated against my will. The nursing staff outside the Cashier’s Office obviously felt the commotion next door was fun as they were all laughing loudly. I told them to shut up and open the goddam security door. I am a powerfully built guy and when the little security guards attempted to whisk me back into the building I told them to back off and step aside or I would contact the police.  They indeed backed off.   I dumped my stuff in my car and painfully drove home.

 

An utterly horrible experience at the hands of (hospital name removed by Moderator). When I got home I complained bitterly to the lead Cashier office management. 18 or so hours later I have head nothing from them. They’re a despicable organisation. I would very much appreciate any similar instances anyone has faced. I am worn out tired, in severe pain and just want to nail these charlatans to the floor for their behaviour.

 

Where do I stand, what, if anything, have I done wrong, where do I go from here?

 

 As @simon43 and @Sheryl have said,  this is all completely normal. 

Price estimates often go up.

Patients usually don't realize that the bureaucracy from the time they are discharged to the time they actually leave the building easily takes 5 hours. 

A friend was recently discharged from a big private hospital.  He is a VIP at this hospital,  he also is a VIP in his insurance company.  He got preferential treatment from both sides.  He waited more than 2 hours. 

 

7 hours ago, johnnybangkok said:

This is not a personal story but it's about one of my staff who was working remotely in Hua Hin. 

She reported to me one day that she was feeling unwell but thought it was just a bad case of the flu and would rest up that day. However her condition detoriated rapidly so she went to the hospital you mentioned. She told them she suspected it may be malaria but they refused to test for it, saying it was 'unlikely' and sending her home with some antibiotics. However, her condition deteriorated further so she checked herself back in, insisting on a malaria test, however it came back negative. Still her condition detoriated so they eventually started doing other tests only to find out she had severe, life-threatening sepsis. At this time they said they were ill-equipped to deal with this and she would have to go by ambulance to MedPark hospital in Bangkok, however they wouldnt do this until money was paid for the ambulance. At this stage she was nearly unconscious and incapacitated and I don't think it's too dramatic to say she was dying.

I was in contact with her this whole time so I stepped in and had to personally pay for the ambulance otherwise they would have just kept her there. There was no thought of 'let's get her saved and worry about the bill later', the money was demanded or she was going nowhere. She was rushed to MedPark where as well as being diagnosed with sepsis they also found jaundice and anaemia. She also had a collapsed lung an enlarged spleen (3 x the size), an enlarged and dangerous liver and fluid on her lungs.. We were told (after a few days) that had she not got there when she did, there was a very good chance she would have died. As it stood, she was in ICU for 2 weeks and took over 3 months to fully recover.

I agree with your sentiments - disgusting behaviour from a place that is supposed to save lives, not try and kill you over the sake of an ambulance bill. And by the way, the ambulance was only something like 60- 80,000 THB (can't quite remember the exact cost) , but whatever it was, it was a small price to pay to save someones life. 

 

This is NOT normal in Thailand, but it's normal for a certain hospital that cannot be named. 

If you live somewhere with several hospitals nearby, make sure you have a rough idea which hospital is good or ok, and which one is to be avoided. 

 

2 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Post title and content have been edited to remove bname of the hospital in keeping with Thailand's defamation laws.

 

OP:  you did a number of things "wrong", not least becoming a bit paranoid over what sounds like typical, if inefficient, processing. Not really cleare how much was the hospital's inefficioency vs the insurer, may have been both. 

 

My last hospitalization (different hospital, different city) it also took a full 6 hours, and multiple complaints from me, to process the insurance claim. This delay did not make any money for the hospital (once they start the processing, all charges have already been compiled). I did not view it as greed or nay sort of plot though I was annoyed, of course. But this is very typical. And your case would have been more complicated given that it was a motor vehicle accident.

 

What to do now? At the moment I would suggest, nothing. Leave it between the hospital and in the insurer(s). If and only if, you receive a bill from the hospital, at that point insist on a detailed itemized bill showing all charges and what was paid by the insurer. Depending on what this  shows, you might then either contest parts of the bill with the hospital OR make a complaint to the OIC about the insurer (assuming it is a Thai company, otherwise then applicable complaint channel. Or both.  https://www.oic.or.th/en/

 

 

Why can the hospital not be named. They are incompetent scammers i would rather be locked up for defamation than have to go to this hospital.  Please let it be named and shamed for the sake of other people. Otherwise you are just being weak and subjecting other people to this despicable hospital. Grow a backbone. 

What stood out to me in this story were 2 comments:

 

1.  "I cannot drive I need to arrange for my wife to come and pick up our parked car to take me home.

 

You casually mentioned you had a wife, but where was she throughout all of this? No help at all? You also claim you cannot drive.

 

2. "I am a powerfully built guy, and when the little security guards attempted to whisk me back into the building, I told them to back off and step aside or I would contact the police.  They indeed backed off.   I dumped my stuff in my car and painfully drove home."

 

A man just out of major surgery and drugged up, bragging about your physical prowess vs some "little security guards". That's weird, as I would think at this point you were very frail and incapacitated and no match for any security guards, no matter how little they were... and now you can drive, as you state you "painfully drove home" in a car that magically turned up without a wife to drive you.

 

Maybe you need a new wife who can help you next time you're in trouble.

13 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

What stood out to me in this story were 2 comments:

 

1.  "I cannot drive I need to arrange for my wife to come and pick up our parked car to take me home.

 

You casually mentioned you had a wife, but where was she throughout all of this? No help at all? You also claim you cannot drive.

 

2. "I am a powerfully built guy, and when the little security guards attempted to whisk me back into the building, I told them to back off and step aside or I would contact the police.  They indeed backed off.   I dumped my stuff in my car and painfully drove home."

 

A man just out of major surgery and drugged up, bragging about your physical prowess vs some "little security guards". That's weird, as I would think at this point you were very frail and incapacitated and no match for any security guards, no matter how little they were... and now you can drive, as you state you "painfully drove home" in a car that magically turned up without a wife to drive you.

 

Maybe you need a new wife who can help you next time you're in trouble.

I remember my broken collarbone, I could not lift my right arm high enough to shave, much less think about getting in a scuffle...

1 hour ago, Jim Mac said:

Why can the hospital not be named. They are incompetent scammers i would rather be locked up for defamation than have to go to this hospital.  Please let it be named and shamed for the sake of other people. Otherwise you are just being weak and subjecting other people to this despicable hospital. Grow a backbone. 

YOU might be happy to be prosecuted for defamation, but the Forum is not. 

 

Bear in mind that in Thailand, the truth of a statement is not a defense against defamation, and defamation is a criminal charge.

 

If anyone wants to know hospital name, they can PM OP and ask.

 

Nothing OP  described rises to the level of "scam".  

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

YOU might be happy to be prosecuted for defamation, but the Forum is not. 

 

Bear in mind that in Thailand, the truth of a statement is not a defense against defamation, and defamation is a criminal charge.

 

If anyone wants to know hospital name, they can PM OP and ask.

 

Nothing OP  described rises to the level of "scam".  

I agree in every point. 

 

There is nothing unusual in the OP's story. Neither is it unusual that farang patients don't understand hospital bureaucracy in private hospitals (especially if they aren't used to this from home) and are very upset about it.

The post of @johnnybangkok, that's a different story. 

18 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Nothing OP  described rises to the level of "scam".  

The price is the scam, 300kbht for a night in hospital and a few bandages is nonsense. 

21 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Interesting report,

I was subject to a hit and run when driving my m/c 2 years back.

Similar injuries, broken collarbone, 5 broken ribs, collapsed lung, scrapes.

2 nights in a government hospital, 1 month in a wheelchair, 3 months outpatient with strapped arm, 1 month physio. My injuries were so severe they informed my wife I might not survive. I had to sleep downstairs for a month as I couldn't walk.

 

13,500bht paid direct by government minimum insurance after my misses made a police report and gave it to the hospital. Zero input from me (not that I could do anything apart from sit in a wheelchair), they set up a tab and collected as and when from the gov ins, I just signed at the cashier after every visit.

 

Not sure why you would need an MRI or a surgeon.

But the private hospitals love to push up charges.

If you could walk out and carry a bag it couldn't have been that bad.

I feel very humble after reading your post, That must have been an extremely traumatic period of your life when you no doubt wondered if things would ever recover and return to normal.  I wish you good health.

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

The price is the scam, 300kbht for a night in hospital and a few bandages is nonsense. 

 

Not for a night in the hospitsl and "a few bandages".

 

He underwent specialized surgery which was sufficiently complex that local military hospital was unable to perform it.

 

The bulk of the cost will have been the surgery itself. Which may have required use of titanium screws/other hardware.  

 

Certainly cost would gave been  less at a government hospital (had he been anld to get to one with the capacity to do this). But for a private hospital the charges do not seem unusual. 

 

 

On 9/14/2025 at 5:06 PM, BritManToo said:

The price is the scam, 300kbht for a night in hospital and a few bandages is nonsense. 

It was not 300k for a night in the hospital and a few bandages. He had surgery.

 

We don't have much information about the OP's corrective surgery, but it was 250,000 Baht with add-ons. It was not a scam, and he was given the price which he agreed to.

 

I have a lot of recent experience at the BKK Hospital (Pattaya, May this year). I spent 15 days (was there for a couple of hours each day) there, taking care of the bill for a friend who had a serious infection, one of those infections that need extra special and very expensive IV antibiotics due to a dangerous and highly resistant bacterium.

 

The total bill was 420k. Paid in cash. It averaged out at about 25,000 per day, but the antibiotics alone cost over 10k per day. The actual accommodation component of the bill was quite cheap. Nursing was cheap. Medical supplies are expensive. The consulting doctors are not expensive, at around 1000 baht per visit, plus extra if they perform a procedure. He was attended daily by a urologist, a vascular surgeon and an infectious disease specialist. Included was an MRI in the neurology department, ultrasounds, and a lot of blood tests every day, as his kidney function was way off the scale.

 

Overall, I would rate the experience as pleasant. The staff in all departments were polite and pleasant to deal with, including the billing department, which I attended daily. I like the hospital. If you can't afford it, there are cheaper options.

 

 

Mods edit - OP has corrected the amount from dollars to baht.

 

I have been to quite a few hospitals here over the last 25 years and have generally been very happy with the care I received and the prices I paid. 

On 9/14/2025 at 7:28 PM, JensenZ said:

was not 300k for a night in the hospital and a few bandages. He had surgery.

 

We don't have much information about the OP's corrective surgery, but it was 250,000 Baht with add-ons. It was not a scam, and he was given the price which he agreed to.

Nope,

No surgery, it's not normal for a broken collarbone, and if it was so serious that they needed to cut him open, he wouldn't have been walking out carrying a bag the next day.

This is what AI has to say about collarbones.

Would hospitals here actually perform unnecessary surgeries in such intstances?

That's really messed up. 

 

2 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

This is what AI has to say about collarbones.

Would hospitals here actually perform unnecessary surgeries in such intstances?

That's really messed up. 

 

1 in 100 need surgery.

Op didn't mention stitches and a return appointment in 10-14 days, so I'm betting he didn't have any.

I had no surgery for my collar bone, just wore a harness like thing. Still have a big lump where the break was. 

 I had a stomach pain problem that would not go away several years ago and decided to have it checked out in BKK. I went to the #1 hospital in Bangkok that usually most if not all expats go to, I will not name due to liability issues. After being processed through out-patient department's which took, all morning, I finally arrived at the gastroenterologist clinic. A nurse said I needed an MRI, my pain level was at 4 to 5 out of ten, and I was determined to find out what was going on. Ask my wife, what she thought, and she said do it.  The MRI was around 1,300 USD, and the nurse kept asking me if I could afford it as I kept saying "YES!" My visa paid and cleared me for the MRI, and it was done with a consult with a Doctor in the next morning at 9 AM. The next morning, my wife and I met with a Doctor who told me I had a hiatal hernia and needed surgery as soon as possible. The Doctor wanted to get me in right away for the surgery that day. I was kind of traumatized as of what to do and decided to go back to the hotel to kind of let the dust settle and make an educated decision. We decided to leave Thailand and get a second opinion in the USA. Left the next day, took three days to see a surgeon which required another MRI and was told the hiatal hernia was not that bad (small tear) and would heal on its own and did not require surgery.  Thank God, I did not go through the surgery in Thailand that the hospital was pushing. Lessons learned: Always get a second opinion and maybe a third.  Good Luck to all.

6 minutes ago, Dan747 said:

Lessons learned: Always get a second opinion and maybe a third.  Good Luck to all.

Lesson to be learned .... Don't trust Thai doctors.

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

1 in 100 need surgery.

Op didn't mention stitches and a return appointment in 10-14 days, so I'm betting he didn't have any.

A lot more than that. 

In Thailand,  if you have international insurance,  an educated guess is 50% get surgery.  Europe (non-profit medicine) shows similar figures. 

A Cochrane review leads one to think that a lot less surgery is really necessary - but certainly a lot more than 1%.

 

1 hour ago, Dan747 said:

I did not go through the surgery in Thailand that the hospital was pushing.

The way I understand  your post, it wasn't "the hospital" (who is that?) "pushing" for surgery - it was the doctor. 

His decision may have been influenced by financial considerations. Highly unethical, but that's  for-profit medicine. In  Thailand, we are lucky as there exists a whole non-profit medical ecosystem, the government healthcare system. 

The only country in the world where the complete healthcare system is based on profit (formerly known as greed), is the US.

 

1 hour ago, Dan747 said:

Lessons learned: Always get a second opinion

 

5 minutes ago, Lorry said:

A lot more than that. 

In Thailand,  if you have international insurance,  an educated guess is 50% get surgery.  Europe (non-profit medicine) shows similar figures. 

A Cochrane review leads one to think that a lot less surgery is really necessary - but certainly a lot more than 1%.

 

The way I understand  your post, it wasn't "the hospital" (who is that?) "pushing" for surgery - it was the doctor. 

His decision may have been influenced by financial considerations. Highly unethical, but that's  for-profit medicine. In  Thailand, we are lucky as there exists a whole non-profit medical ecosystem, the government healthcare system. 

The only country in the world where the complete healthcare system is based on profit (formerly known as greed), is the US.

 

 

Why do you consider profit greed?