Does anyone still have U.S. health insurance?

[anna7602]

I just filled out 15 separate forms to get reimbursed for a ton of office visits, lab xrays and whatnot from when DH had pneumonia in March and DD had a UTI.

Surely figuring out how to officially get on the French system would be easier than this, but for some reason, DH's company wants us to stay under the radar on the healthcare front.

I am so confused. And my hand is about to fall off from all the form-writing. I'm hoping no one else gets really sick anytime soon.

[potatopie]

I wish we still had US health insurance. I live in fear that DH or I gets sick while visiting the US. I'm afraid of how much the SA insurance will try to weasel out of paying. They already don't cover a lot for things done here. I can't imagine they'll like anything done with a US price tag.

[anna7602]

Jun 4, 2012 3:35:14 GMT -5 potatopie said:

I wish we still had US health insurance. I live in fear that DH or I gets sick while visiting the US. I'm afraid of how much the SA insurance will try to weasel out of paying. They already don't cover a lot for things done here. I can't imagine they'll like anything done with a US price tag.

US price tags do suck, but I also feel like because of that, they don't do as much "stuff" in the US as we've had done here. For the UTI, DD had to get a renal sonogram. I can't imagine a U.S. doctor prescribing one unless there was a truly serious issue. And for the pneumonia, DH had THREE chest xrays.

I guess it's good to be proactive in some cases, but I don't love the French tendency to schedule extra tests and to prescribe antibiotics for the littlest thing (not talking about the pneumonia or the UTI now). I like to avoid antibiotics whenever possible, even when a 15-day supply only costs 4 euros.

[GilliC]

I had US health insurance when I was in China, and it was a nightmare. The best option was just to go to the doctor/hospital, pay out of pocket, and then submit a request for reimbursement. Thankfully, medical costs were low enough that we could usually afford to do this.

Unfortunately, when XH suddenly needed surgery, that was a bit more than we could afford to just pay and wait to get back. We gave the insurance information to the surgery, but over a year later, I was still getting bills from the surgery and refusals to pay from the insurance company. The insurance company would send me things like, "A second nurse during this procedure is only covered if it is deemed medically necessary." WTF?! Take it up with the damn surgery! I wasn't in the room, and I'm not a medical professional, so how am I supposed to argue that it was medically necessary?!

Grrr.

[anna7602]

Jun 4, 2012 8:26:50 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Unfortunately, when XH suddenly needed surgery, that was a bit more than we could afford to just pay and wait to get back. We gave the insurance information to the surgery, but over a year later, I was still getting bills from the surgery and refusals to pay from the insurance company. The insurance company would send me things like, "A second nurse during this procedure is only covered if it is deemed medically necessary." WTF?! Take it up with the damn surgery! I wasn't in the room, and I'm not a medical professional, so how am I supposed to argue that it was medically necessary?!

Grrr.

Eeek. This is what I am fearing. That I will get some stupid letter saying three chest x-rays are not necessary to diagnose, treat and follow-up on pneumonia.

[crimsonandclover]

Yeah, I was getting bills from 4 places for my miscarriage here (ER, OB, nurse practitioner who took care of me in the ER, and the lab for my bloodwork). We have supplementary insurance from our German provider for while we're in the States, but we're supposed to pay for things OOP and get reimbursed unless it's more than we can readily afford - so like the ER visit. Anyway, my German insurance company has a partner in the US who handles stuff here, but there was a big mess because of a little tiny bureaucratic error. At least now I know what the problem was and will be able to avoid it in the future in case we have to do anything more during our stay.

In the past I've thought about maintaining US health insurance just to make things easier, and in case I develop something that would be considered a pre-existing condition and would be excluded if we were to ever come back to the States and get insurance. So far, though, we don't have the money to maintain that kind of extra insurance. Plus it looks like we'll be staying in Germany long-term, so I hope I don't regret not doing it.

[mrsukyankee]

What about travel insurance? That's what we get when we travel to the US and it's meant to cover all those sorts of possibilities.

[oneslybookworm]

I have both US and NL insurance. Both pay 100% of everything. Please tell me why I needed Dutch health insurance again?

It was a lot of forms, but it was actually fairly easy to get reimbursed, even when I broke my foot and had foot surgery over here. Our insurance is one our company uses for all expats though, so maybe they're used to different billing systems.

[tktravels]

We've still got US health insurance (and it's our only health insurance) because H's company is a US company, but he just happens to be working for them in an office in Poland.

Aside from a routine dental visit back in the US while there for a conference, I have not used it since moving here. We had no problems with the dental visit, but I expect fewer problems with in-country providers.

I've got my first prenatal appointment next week, and I'm looking forward to paying for everything out of pocket and then having to fight the insurance company to cover any of it. They do have a list of doctors that they cover here in Poland, but unfortunately, the list was last updated in 2006 or so, and a number of the docs listed then are no longer practicing. Good times.

[anna7602]

Jun 4, 2012 13:22:45 GMT -5 tktravels said:

We've still got US health insurance (and it's our only health insurance) because H's company is a US company, but he just happens to be working for them in an office in Poland.

This is our situation, except insert France instead of Poland. I hadn't even thought about OB/Gyn stuff. I guess I should see if there's some approved list of care providers that apply to us here since we are thinking of TTC in the next few months. Ga! Here I was just hoping we wouldn't get sick and I forgot all about that project.

[frlcb]

Jun 4, 2012 19:16:26 GMT -5 @publius said:

Jun 4, 2012 8:53:28 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

In the past I've thought about maintaining US health insurance just to make things easier, and in case I develop something that would be considered a pre-existing condition and would be excluded if we were to ever come back to the States and get insurance. So far, though, we don't have the money to maintain that kind of extra insurance. Plus it looks like we'll be staying in Germany long-term, so I hope I don't regret not doing it.

I've always been told that as long as you were continuously covered by some scheme--even if it's by the NHS or other national scheme in another country--it counts as continuous coverage.

We found that to be the case when we returned to the US.

[americaninoz]

Jun 4, 2012 12:15:34 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

What about travel insurance? That's what we get when we travel to the US and it's meant to cover all those sorts of possibilities.

Yes that's what we do when we travel to the states. I always make sure we have really good travel insurance in case something medically happens while we are visiting.

[Deleted]

We had horrible coverage with US insurance so when I got a job and found out my company paid most of the NL insurance, we went with them.
We carried a travel policy that covered us in the US. We ended up going to the doctor in the US because my son had a bad ear infection and had to pay about $400 OOT of pocket for doctor's offices and ear medication but our travel insurance reimbursed us immediately. We carried dutch travel insurance also. It was about 14.25 a month and well worth every penny because it covered almost everything you could imagine you would need covered from cancelled trips to lost luggage to getting sick while on vacation.