Medical Fees Set To Rise By 10 - 15%: Thailand

[davejones]

the minister said. C-quality medical-service providers, for example, should not charge the same rate as the top-grade hospitals, he said.

Does this mean, if you dont have enough money to pay for the top grade services your chances for survival decrease substantially? Or are we just talking about the facilities quality?

That's true all over the world. It's pretty obvious that if you don't have much money, that the quality of treatment is likely to be lower. Poor people die younger than richer people. So yes, money does make a difference.

No it's not true in countries (EU for example) that have a proper health care system. Money makes a difference with private health care.

Also I question your assertion that poor people die younger than rich people. It may be true in Africa but I don't think it is in Europe, Japan & other more developed countries.

It's also true in EU countries. In UK for example, the better off can afford private health care, while the poorer people have to use the NHS. The standard of care in the NHS is mostly pretty bad. Plus very long waiting times, very difficult to book a doctor's appointment, etc. Obviously not as bad as here, but there is a huge difference between what the rich can afford, compared to the rest. Many people even get refuse treatment on the NHS because it's too expensive. The rich can buy it, the poor can't.

[davejones]

Thais are hypercondriacs and the doctors here prescribe all sorts of drugs which are not necessary. My wife went to a hospital last saturday and came back with all sorts of medicine not necessary. She was told by the doctor he would prescribe her a cream to alleviate the problem but she ended up with 5 medications including danzen and paracetamol. Our house is full of unused, overprescribed medication.

Doctors in the US and UK are propbably the worst in the world for prescribing unnecessary drugs. Even the World Health Organization says so. It's not something that's unique to Thailand. Although I've never been prescribed drugs here - they've always fixed the problem without drugs.

[khunken]

the minister said. C-quality medical-service providers, for example, should not charge the same rate as the top-grade hospitals, he said.

Does this mean, if you dont have enough money to pay for the top grade services your chances for survival decrease substantially? Or are we just talking about the facilities quality?

That's true all over the world. It's pretty obvious that if you don't have much money, that the quality of treatment is likely to be lower. Poor people die younger than richer people. So yes, money does make a difference.

No it's not true in countries (EU for example) that have a proper health care system. Money makes a difference with private health care.

Also I question your assertion that poor people die younger than rich people. It may be true in Africa but I don't think it is in Europe, Japan & other more developed countries.

It's also true in EU countries. In UK for example, the better off can afford private health care, while the poorer people have to use the NHS. The standard of care in the NHS is mostly pretty bad. Plus very long waiting times, very difficult to book a doctor's appointment, etc. Obviously not as bad as here, but there is a huge difference between what the rich can afford, compared to the rest. Many people even get refuse treatment on the NHS because it's too expensive. The rich can buy it, the poor can't.

I agree with what you say about the UK but there are countries in the EU with better health care systems. Plus buying your care doesn't always mean better treatment & that applies here too. I & a former g/f have had operations in a private hospital here - both very successful, very expensive & carried out by Chula surgeons.

So - yes the rich can buy it, but it doesn't always mean it is better. Chulalongkorn hospital provides top quality health treatment but is just overrun by the hordes of people seeking free treatment. The problem is that they (the government) haven't been able to put together a system that dissuades hypocondriacs & malingerers from misusing the free system.

[NeverSure]

Thais are hypercondriacs and the doctors here prescribe all sorts of drugs which are not necessary. My wife went to a hospital last saturday and came back with all sorts of medicine not necessary. She was told by the doctor he would prescribe her a cream to alleviate the problem but she ended up with 5 medications including danzen and paracetamol. Our house is full of unused, overprescribed medication.

Doctors in the US and UK are propbably the worst in the world for prescribing unnecessary drugs. Even the World Health Organization says so. It's not something that's unique to Thailand. Although I've never been prescribed drugs here - they've always fixed the problem without drugs.

In the US it has to do with malpractice lawsuits. The one single thing that would bring the cost of health care down in the US is malpractice suit reform. Doctors prescribe lots of tests like MRI's and Cat scans and lab work, and then prescribe multiple treatments to CYA.

In a typical doctor's office or clinic, the single biggest expense is the premium for malpractice insurance. That goes up if there's actually a suit, kind of like a driving record affects insurance premiums.

A local medical clinic with 27 or 28 doctors just sold out to the biggest hospital in the area, and the staff including doctors are now employees of the hospital. The reason is that the hospital is well established and well funded and they self insure for the first $1 million of any malpractice claim. In other words they have a $1 million deductible. That lowers the cost of their malpractice insurance, and they covered that clinic with that policy. Now the clinic has a tiny premium and can survive. BUT the hospital on average pays about $1 million a year in malpractice claims, out of pocket.

This doesn't solve the problem of these doctors over prescribing tests and meds to CYA. That hospital owns three modern MRI machines and you can get an appointment and scan the same day. You can get blood and lab work and a CAT scan the same day. You're likely to get all of it.

This drives up the cost of everything including of course health insurance.

The US's reputation for having expensive health care costs doesn't mean that any one procedure or med is expensive, other than the added cost of CYA. It really means that there is so much done to avoid suits that more money is spent in a hospital on staff who protect the hospital in the background, than is spent on patient care.

[Kitbaikitmah]

Lived with a hilltribe family for a while. When the grandmother, older and tougher than the hills, was taken to the state hospital just north of Mae Rim and diagnosed with cancer. Immediate surgery was required. I spoke to the surgeon. He said he loves helping the poor hill people and as an army surgeon he can practice his techniques. Post-op the old dear was presented with a jar containing the tumour and faded away over the following months.

Its a shame there isn't greater investment in pro-active health/safety education...even something as basic as the Green Cross Code.

Methinks that the medical tourist is being taxed above and beyond the common private hospital scams.

[robertson468]

the minister said. C-quality medical-service providers, for example, should not charge the same rate as the top-grade hospitals, he said.

Does this mean, if you dont have enough money to pay for the top grade services your chances for survival decrease substantially? Or are we just talking about the facilities quality?

You should perhaps do some research and find out which medical facilities are patronised by Mr Pradit and his family. Certainly not C-class medical service providers. Politicians have their own form of super gold card paid for taxpayers. They steal from the taxpayers and buy top class medical services from the best the private hospitals with the proceeds.

Yes, definitely your chances of survival are less, if you use the government services.

I was admitted to a private hospital, not to name names but it sounds very similar to the capital of Thailand. I was charged 15,000 baht per day effectively for a drip and a couple of x-rays. After 11 days I discharged myself and was admitted to the Government Hospital on Koh Samui and paid 1,500 baht per day for a private ward and received exactly the same treatment. The Doctors and Nurses in the Government Hospital were equally as good as the private hospital, albeit the Nurses had less sexy uniforms! If I need the services of a hospital again, I know where I am heading and when I get out, I will be able to afford a good convalescence holiday on the money I saved from the private hospital.

[Thai at Heart]

the minister said. C-quality medical-service providers, for example, should not charge the same rate as the top-grade hospitals, he said.

Does this mean, if you dont have enough money to pay for the top grade services your chances for survival decrease substantially? Or are we just talking about the facilities quality?

You should perhaps do some research and find out which medical facilities are patronised by Mr Pradit and his family. Certainly not C-class medical service providers. Politicians have their own form of super gold card paid for taxpayers. They steal from the taxpayers and buy top class medical services from the best the private hospitals with the proceeds.

Yes, definitely your chances of survival are less, if you use the government services.

I was admitted to a private hospital, not to name names but it sounds very similar to the capital of Thailand. I was charged 15,000 baht per day effectively for a drip and a couple of x-rays. After 11 days I discharged myself and was admitted to the Government Hospital on Koh Samui and paid 1,500 baht per day for a private ward and received exactly the same treatment. The Doctors and Nurses in the Government Hospital were equally as good as the private hospital, albeit the Nurses had less sexy uniforms! If I need the services of a hospital again, I know where I am heading and when I get out, I will be able to afford a good convalescence holiday on the money I saved from the private hospital.

And note, there are usually 2 different prices if paying with private insurance or cash, and the difference can be very significant.

[Payboy]

Look on the bright side. Lobotomies are still free, on arrival at Suvarnabhumi.

[Terry Newman]

But Yiinluck, Charlam and Cpatain Thaksin via Skype insist it is only 3%

[siampolee]

Great shame the monies pilfered in the great rice pledging scam scheme along with the rebates for first time car buyers weren't actually directed into the health sector then all would benefit not just the corrupt few.

Doesn't one just love the equality under this current maladministration who proclaimed loudly, '' fair shares for all. ''.

[morpho]

Not that I need a lot of medical care/attention but just another reason to leave Thailand for greener pastures, along with the strong baht, bad attitudes among many Thais these days, too many cars on the road (with bad drivers), misbehaved dogs whose owners don't seem to care, etc. Next stop either Cambodia, Vietnam, or the Philippines. PS. By the way, I do care about the poor of this country who will find it even more difficult to get adequate health care.

[Beetlejuice]

Overall, it`s simply cheaper to just give in and die.

Funeral costs are quite cheap these days and also makes a great day out of free food and drink for all the family, friends and neighbors, including the fireworks spectacle and tradition bomb fire for the kids entertainment.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Beetlejuice

[SantiSuk]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

Private dental work in Thailand seems to be hugely expensive. I took my wife and older daughter to a dental clinic in recent weeks to get cosmetic dentistry to correct goofy teeth - no rocket science involved, a couple of extractions and a brace fitted. Well, we have only got through the consultation, X-Ray, cleaning and advice stage and the bill is already at 14,000 baht for the two. And this clinic seems hugely popular with the hi-sos (and not-so-his) of Ubon, all piling in there to shell out for good looks.

I was staggered when they asked for 2,500 baht just to clean/descale daughter's teeth (about the amount I pay a private dentist's hygienist in their private practice off Oxford Street in London, and they take a lot of work after 4 years of neglect. My wife told me she wished she had taken daughter to the local dentist where it had cost her about 150 baht two weeks previous! I readily agreed.

As we left the clinic - on Tha Chayangkul, the lead dentist (to be fair he was probably the dental practice entrepreneurial owner) came out too and jumped into his brand new Mercedes CL class - must be well over US$70,000 on the road price in Thailand. He was about 30 - all his dental technicians taht I saw looked sub-25.

You have been warned. Local village and town dentistry is cheap but anything cosmetic seems to be a license to rip off even the Thais. There seems to be a certain warped logic to pricing of beauty and health. At the local Ubon private hospital I reckon that 14,000 baht would get you about 30 ten minute consultations (5 hours solid) with a specialist surgeon/doctor who will have had 10-20 years training experience. My wife agreed that this was a realistic comparison and shrugged her shoulders - "Thai give big money to look beautiful teeth". "Farang maybe not" quoth I struggling to decide how to get out of a promise with dignity

[hellodolly]

Thais are hypercondriacs and the doctors here prescribe all sorts of drugs which are not necessary. My wife went to a hospital last saturday and came back with all sorts of medicine not necessary. She was told by the doctor he would prescribe her a cream to alleviate the problem but she ended up with 5 medications including danzen and paracetamol. Our house is full of unused, overprescribed medication.

Doctors in the US and UK are propbably the worst in the world for prescribing unnecessary drugs. Even the World Health Organization says so. It's not something that's unique to Thailand. Although I've never been prescribed drugs here - they've always fixed the problem without drugs.

In the US it has to do with malpractice lawsuits. The one single thing that would bring the cost of health care down in the US is malpractice suit reform. Doctors prescribe lots of tests like MRI's and Cat scans and lab work, and then prescribe multiple treatments to CYA.

In a typical doctor's office or clinic, the single biggest expense is the premium for malpractice insurance. That goes up if there's actually a suit, kind of like a driving record affects insurance premiums.

A local medical clinic with 27 or 28 doctors just sold out to the biggest hospital in the area, and the staff including doctors are now employees of the hospital. The reason is that the hospital is well established and well funded and they self insure for the first $1 million of any malpractice claim. In other words they have a $1 million deductible. That lowers the cost of their malpractice insurance, and they covered that clinic with that policy. Now the clinic has a tiny premium and can survive. BUT the hospital on average pays about $1 million a year in malpractice claims, out of pocket.

This doesn't solve the problem of these doctors over prescribing tests and meds to CYA. That hospital owns three modern MRI machines and you can get an appointment and scan the same day. You can get blood and lab work and a CAT scan the same day. You're likely to get all of it.

This drives up the cost of everything including of course health insurance.

The US's reputation for having expensive health care costs doesn't mean that any one procedure or med is expensive, other than the added cost of CYA. It really means that there is so much done to avoid suits that more money is spent in a hospital on staff who protect the hospital in the background, than is spent on patient care.

What you say is true but almost as costly is the cost of diagnosing the patient. All to often the cost of treating the patient is far less than diagnosing them.

(two aspirin and call me in the morning)

[Anon999]

the minister said. C-quality medical-service providers, for example, should not charge the same rate as the top-grade hospitals, he said.

Does this mean, if you dont have enough money to pay for the top grade services your chances for survival decrease substantially? Or are we just talking about the facilities quality?

That's true all over the world. It's pretty obvious that if you don't have much money, that the quality of treatment is likely to be lower. Poor people die younger than richer people. So yes, money does make a difference.

No it's not true in countries (EU for example) that have a proper health care system. Money makes a difference with private health care.

Also I question your assertion that poor people die younger than rich people. It may be true in Africa but I don't think it is in Europe, Japan & other more developed countries.

It's also true in EU countries. In UK for example, the better off can afford private health care, while the poorer people have to use the NHS. The standard of care in the NHS is mostly pretty bad. Plus very long waiting times, very difficult to book a doctor's appointment, etc. Obviously not as bad as here, but there is a huge difference between what the rich can afford, compared to the rest. Many people even get refuse treatment on the NHS because it's too expensive. The rich can buy it, the poor can't.

I can only comment about the area of Isaan where I live and up here the doctors, surgeons and consultants work in both the government and private hospitals and have their own private clinics too. You can have the treatment done by the same person, however, if you choose to go private then it's this week otherwise you join the back of the queue at the government hospital.

[Osiris]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

St. Louis hospital.

[thaibeachlovers]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

Would a state hospital do tooth implants? Somehow I doubt it.

[maturebrit]

40k was about what I was told too.... but then at my age implants may not take but I was quoted 36k for a 6 tooth bridge...in private dentist in Pattaya

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[maturebrit]

was told that Pattaya International Hosp have a top notch dental dept

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[thaibeachlovers]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

Private dental work in Thailand seems to be hugely expensive. I took my wife and older daughter to a dental clinic in recent weeks to get cosmetic dentistry to correct goofy teeth - no rocket science involved, a couple of extractions and a brace fitted. Well, we have only got through the consultation, X-Ray, cleaning and advice stage and the bill is already at 14,000 baht for the two. And this clinic seems hugely popular with the hi-sos (and not-so-his) of Ubon, all piling in there to shell out for good looks.

I was staggered when they asked for 2,500 baht just to clean/descale daughter's teeth (about the amount I pay a private dentist's hygienist in their private practice off Oxford Street in London, and they take a lot of work after 4 years of neglect. My wife told me she wished she had taken daughter to the local dentist where it had cost her about 150 baht two weeks previous! I readily agreed.

As we left the clinic - on Tha Chayangkul, the lead dentist (to be fair he was probably the dental practice entrepreneurial owner) came out too and jumped into his brand new Mercedes CL class - must be well over US$70,000 on the road price in Thailand. He was about 30 - all his dental technicians taht I saw looked sub-25.

You have been warned. Local village and town dentistry is cheap but anything cosmetic seems to be a license to rip off even the Thais. There seems to be a certain warped logic to pricing of beauty and health. At the local Ubon private hospital I reckon that 14,000 baht would get you about 30 ten minute consultations (5 hours solid) with a specialist surgeon/doctor who will have had 10-20 years training experience. My wife agreed that this was a realistic comparison and shrugged her shoulders - "Thai give big money to look beautiful teeth". "Farang maybe not" quoth I struggling to decide how to get out of a promise with dignity

I don't remember what I paid for my last tooth cleaning at a Pattaya clinic, but it was probably about 300 bht. Good clinic too. Obviously, that clinic is asking hiso prices.

It's like going to a 5* hotel and being surprised when they ask 50 times more for a room than the entirely adequate no star hotel around the corner.

[thaibeachlovers]

40k was about what I was told too.... but then at my age implants may not take but I was quoted 36k for a 6 tooth bridge...in private dentist in Pattaya

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

That's cheap- go for it. At my most recent dentist in C M crowns cost about 10,000 each, so your bridge would be 60,000.

[thaibeachlovers]

was told that Pattaya International Hosp have a top notch dental dept

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

They may well do, but it won't be cheap.

I had a lot of work done at Bumrungrad hospital, but I found the dentists on the whole to be unpleasant and uncaring. The Pattaya clinics I used were every bit as good and the dentists were much nicer.

[maturebrit]

why not call and get a price..... I was told it was reasonable but that might not be the case to everybody

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[PoodMaiDai]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

You often get what you pay for.

[thaibeachlovers]

'The fee for a lung or heart transplant will rise from Bt45,000 to Bt64,000, while a liver-transplant will jump from Bt40,000 to Bt54,000'!

wow, operations are really that cheap? my friend is trying to get a tooth implant and can't find a deal cheaper than 40,000 baht.

I wonder if that price covers the post op meds which the patient has to take for the rest of their life, plus all the follow up blood tests etc?