Bupa Platinum plan - skip outpatient?

[jpshanik]

Not to be rude but I'm a bit confused as to some of the comments being posted. I know there are many differing prices of hospital care around Thailand but one of the main purposes of having insurance is that hospitals can't overcharge you. If you have a procedure done and the bill goes straight to the insurance company, the insurance company pays them directly at the rate that is appropriate (for the most part). That's part of the reason for buying a policy. It's much harder to scam the insurance companies than a foreigner without any insurance.

Also, for the person claiming 5 mil baht is too low, I'd be interested to know the reasoning. A routine surgical procedure with 4 or 5 day stay at samitivej costs about 150k baht. This is one of the priciest hospitals in Thailand if not the most.

I encourage ppl to compare policies in detail as I've worked in insurance for over a decade and have been more than pleased with the coverage here for the price.

Please note that even though some companies do drop policy holders, some have guaranteed renewal.

Also, depending on the policy, the max can be "per injury, per year".

I know insurance is not fun to read but your hard earned money is paying for it. You might want to see what exactly your getting. Or you can always get an agent that can explain what exactly you're getting. (Again, I am a broker so I'm a bit biased).

If it is my post you refer to I did not say 5 mil was "too low" I said it was the lowest one should have i.e. the minimum needed.

Obviously a routine procedure with a 5-6 day stay is not the concern here. Even a low-ball policy will cover that and for that matter, most people could manage to pay out of pocket if they had to. It is the possibility of a catastrophic event with prolonged ICU stay and multiple major surgeries one has to consider. I have known those to exceed 2 million at government hospitals, let alone private.

Thanks for the reply and sorry if there was a misunderstanding. I agree, if you are looking to get true catastrophic coverage, maybe the 5 mil maybe a little low if you want to stay at Samitivej or Bumrumgrad. However, if you compare apples to apples, the cost of the coverage is very low (and I mean dramatically lower) compared to coverage in places like the US or the UK. Also, we are talking about coverage with no deductibles, where as my policies abroad always came with outrageous deductibles upwards of $5000 US per year even before you saw a single dollar of coverage. So in essence (imho) we are talking about a truly different coverage. I prefer the Thai one, where I can go to a hospital and not worry if I have enough to cover the most basic stay (even with insurance).

As far as limits are concerned, I have never been asked to raise one, but I would be very surprised if any of the major insurers in Thailand wouldn't raise the limits for additional coverage. Also, since the actual premiums are statistics based, I think you would be surprised how little your monthly premium would go up to cover even 10 mil baht per year.

I don't want to endorse one product over another, but I think some of the features in BUPA are pretty good if you really look into what you get for the price.

I know this is a bit off subject, but when I insure super cars, I have been able to change pretty much all the limits of coverage and I would imagine I could do the same for Health Insurance.

Hope that helps

[Sheryl]

Actually I have asked BUPA about higher coverage and been told not possible to go beyond the platinum 5 mill.

But at present costs I feel reasonably OK with a 5 mill cap. I would not be comfortable with just 1 mill though.

[thailand49]

BUPA platinum is 5 million, which IMO is about the lowest level anyone should have. (It is also the highest cover available from BUPA Thailand).

A major factor for high insurance costs in Thailand is that few Thais take out private insurance. The formal employment sector is covered by Thai SS and everyone else by the "gold card" scheme. Hence the pool of insured people is small which bumps up costs considerably.

I agree that you got to have at least 5 million baht coverage! I live here and I know many expats that have gotten sick or had accident and going to a private hospital with International creditdation can run you in a month if ICU or operation is needed between 1 and 2 million. Especially at hospital like BPH or Bumrungrad.

Although the ops ask about outpatient what happens if outpatient ends up to be inpatients. Many of the horror stories of the above hospital one go in for a simple checkup and they recommend a bypass operation why because they need to pay for all the equipment. They might started out helping people now they cater to tourist now they are all about Quotas!

Much of what you have said might have been true but when it comes to these private hospital which is most likely what the ops will use are doesn't really have anything to do with who or Thai buying insurance.

As mentioned 5 million coverage for someone who is young might be affordable but for a older expat it costly more than what one would pay in the U.S. and only for inpatient. As mentioned I got 15 million baht coverage for a lower price than what I would pay for 1 million from Bupa.

[Sheryl]

Yes, I agree that insurance rates in Thailand are comparatively high relative to the coverage offered, as mentioned this reflects the very small pool of insured people.

One thing to be considered though with policies from overseas is that you may have to pay out of pocket first and get reimbursed as there is often no mechanism for direct billing. This may be a problem for some people. Also, the logistics of getting pre-approvals if required may be much more complicated due to less smooth communications (language, lack of working relationship between the Insurance Co. and the hospital) and lastly, some people have reported problems getting Thai hospitals to properly fill out overseas insurance forms.

So it's a trade off with pros and cons both ways.

One big advantage with BUPA Thailand is that it is the largest private insurance co and the hospitals are very familiar with it and usually already have strong channels of communication in place so usually no problem with either direct billing or getting approvals.

[thailand49]

True and somewhat false.. Sure Bupa has the biggest name like AIA which Is the biggest ripoff of all of them. I believe Bupa is owned by Blue Cross and AIA , which was sold off by AIG in the States. But what I found out is that very few if any has any power over the private hospital aside from room rate even Bupa seem to have little control over how much the hospital want them to pay for a procedure. In my research in the Chon Buri area none of the hospital could tell me what a particular procedure would cost.

In the U.S. insurance company has all the power in telling the hospital what they want to pay for a particular room and procedure so they have so many clients and basically telling the hospital if you want our business with this many policy holder we will pay you this and that. A good example is insurance companies get a rate on a room like 2500 baht per night and if you don't have insurance that same room is 5000 baht, that is quoted from Bangkok/Pattaya but beyond that they couldn't give you a rate on a charge for a operation. They will charge you based on who you are like a Farang etc.. from my experience each time I have used BPH, it takes hours to finalize the bill. I once went down and complain and they told me they can't agree on the charge so I couldn't check out.

Sure, if you have insurance overseas because of so many reasons including language they actually don't want to do the billing so you do have to have funds to pay first and get your money back later. And like most insurance home gladly pay the amount knowing that the procedure you just had would be ten times at home. In respect to this I have found from my research that hospital like BPH beef up the bill. My brother who has insurance in the States his wife had a C section cost out of pocket 80,000 baht. He paid cash and submitted the bill to insurance back home my cousins Thai wife also had a C section a week later same hospital, same everything except no insurance and the cost was 30,000 baht.

In the end, you got to have something to protect yourself there is no perfect answer here and you got to play their game it can drive a person crazy? It isn't what it seems here?

Good luck to all..

[richard_smith237]

The 5 million baht cap is why my Wife and I chose BUPA Int'l over BUPA Thailand.

I also have a friend who suffered a rare illness, she was in ICU for months, too sick to be repatriated to the UK. Her medical bill was nearly 5 million baht, but her insurance was capped off much lower than this.... Her parents were scrambling to come up with the financed to meet the bills.

I have also experienced medevac and a hospital stay on Singapore which exceeded US$50,000, billed directly to n durance (not BUPA though as I had double cover, it was the Cover through work which paid out rather than my BUPA cover in this instance).