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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Dental Care

Dont you just hate it when you have to pay (literally!) a visit to your dentist? My last visit to the dentist was back in PA when my root canal got infected and i had to get a surgery done. Im supposed to go back to replace the temporary crown tht i have on but now, on top of being scared of the dentist, im also afraid of the bill. Because you see, hubby has been going to the dentist for the last 2 weeks and he's gonna have to go back for the next 2-3 weeks to get the teeth fix. As much as I dont like going to the dentist, he's even worse. hehe. On his 2nd visit, he has to do quite a number of things (extraction, root canal etc) and the whole thing took almost 4hrs. Im not kidding you. We were there fr 9am till 1pm. At first I waited for him at the reception area then after finding out that its gonna take abt 3hrs, i went in to see him. I can see that he looked scared so i asked him if he wants me to stay around. the conversation goes something like this,

Me, "are you ok, baby?"

Him, "yea. i dont like this"

Me, "do you want me to stick around? the reception says tht i can wait here with you"

Him with a pale-look face, nodded and said, "yes"

So there i was, sitting in the room while the dentist, (whom by the way is very nice and tried her best to calm her patient down while doing her job) and the dental assistant do their stuff. Luckily I had my book with me so it didn feel tht long. :)

Now back to why I havent been going back to the dentist. For those in Malaysia, I will try to give you a scenario on why the doctors, nurses and everybody who works in the health industry is paid very well here in the US and why Malaysian who studied medicine incl those sponsored by Malaysian government bickers and bitch about their pay back home. Everything in the US requires you to have an insurance. There's medical, prescription, dental and vision. If you dont have an insurance, its basically gonna cost you an arm and a leg and your firstborn. (taken fr the ad of a gas station last yr when the price went up). Having insurance doesn mean that you dont have to pay anything either. Like our medical insurance for example, we still have to pay $30 for co-pay for each visit to the doctor and another $10 each for the medications. So each visit to the doctor will cost at least $40 or RM136, not incl the insurance the we'r paying every pay check. Luckily with our plan, all lab test only cost us $10/each so thts not too bad.

As for dental, let me just put the figures here for all the work tht needs to be done on hubby without the insurance. $9,600. That's a whopping Rm32,736! I cant even begin to imagine wht i could have done to my teeth with that sum of money back in Malaysia. No wait, I can! With that amount of money, we BOTH can go back to Malaysia for 2 weeks, get all the work done at KLCC Medical Centre (me and hubby), dining and shopping at KLCC and still have some money left!

Btw, did you realise that I mention everything KLCC? Thts because if you wanna pay more for anything, just go there! tsk tsk tsk. And even with the insurance we still have to pay around 40%.

7 comments:

Ms J said...

money makes the worl go round, they say!

giving birth alone would have cost us USD23,000. luckily with pvte insurance, the bill came up down to USD8,000. still too much dough though.

i think you'd get better health care here anyways..

Anonymous said...

It is the same here. I pay euro 400 per month (that is about USD500) on my health insurance alone (being a woman is more expensive than men) and not including Milla! Our income tax is 56%! and I still have to pay (personal portion) of about euro 2000 (USD 2300) per annum.

We don't get tax benefit from having a child either. ... As you can imagine life is not cheap.

Like June, my caesarian section for Milla also cost a bomb. And same for dentist...Alas, I am obsessed about my teeth and go to the dental hygienist on a 3 monthly basis, do 6 monthly check-up without fail, annual profesional cleaning etc ...My excuse is, I have to get as much from that expensive health insurance...

As you can imagine with a high income tax, I have to work hard to pay for my insurance...as C pays for Milla's and his...

Life is not cheap in the west, not only in the USA, unless you are unemployed/claiming welfare benefits due to disability etc and willing to have second class healthcare in NL, you'd have to fork out a lot of money for it...

Nina xxx

Salt N Turmeric said...

ms_j, $8k w the insurance? when its my time, id seriously consider giving birth in kl. a private room at gleneagles is only rm5k. maybe its higher now but im sure stil less than usd8k or rm27k!

nina, income tax @ 56%? gulp! i dunno abt u guys but eventho im not working here i stil miss the low tax rate back in msia and not to mention the rm5k rebate for each individual. the welfare (for women) is when ur unemployed and have NOT married. ul get more if u have kids.

JamyTan said...

Wow, US$8k ? very expensive leh.

I paid US$150 for my c-section and also my open heart surgery. We have one of the best health insurance.
All in all , my open heart surgery and pace maker implant cost us US$480k without insurance, with insurance we paid only US$150.

In our case, I really like the health care here cos we only pay US$15 for any kind of docs we see and only US$150 for any kind of surgery we need to have.So, I am pretty happy.

Recently, my dad was diagnosed as having brain tumor. He did his op. in a private hosp. in Kch. The doc told us there is a waiting period of 6wks to do his radiation therapy, and he need to queue in the hospital at early in the morning to get his radiation treatment. Since his cancer is very aggressive, we don't think we wanted him to wait, so we brought him to Pantai. It cost us abt RM80k for room/surgery/radiation.

I still prefer the American health care system.

I might have gone to heaven now if I have continue to live in Malaysia. The jantung hospital told me the waiting list for me to get operated was 9mths. I thought, aiyo, by then, I probably sudah mati.

When I was in the state, I was operated the next wk after I had my cardiac catherization.

I used to live in Aust for many yrs, I was not happy with the heavy tax system. I remembered I was taxed abt 38%. Apa macam ini, how to survive when government took away nearly 40% of yr pay. That is why lah, I can only afford to live in aptment in Austrlia. Here I can afford a 50acres range home.

Even though it is free health care but every thing come from yr pay check lah. I had a very bad experience with free health care in Aust.

I was diagnosed with breast cyst and need a surgery done. The doc that I saw for consultation was a mature older gentlemen doc but when I was in my operating room, I realized I was cut up by 2 inexperience intent. Aiyo, these people are so inexperience that I felt so much pain in my surgery cos they did not put enough ent. med. With free health care, u don't get to choose yr doc, the government appoint for u. But, here with my insurance, I got to choose my doc. My surgeon was the head of cardiac dept of US and Duke graduate; and my cardiologist is Duke graduate. I am very please. Now, I go to the clinics to have my pacer check, free and once a yr consultation with my cardiologist, US$15.

The tax here for family is good, esp with child(ren).

That is only my personal thoughts/experience from living in Malaysia/Australia and US. I think each one of us have different experience so our perception of things/issues are different. But, I wont' change anything in the world for my US health experience :)-

Anonymous said...

The name of the game is the higher the premium the lower the co-payment. Like everything else in life, it is always better to have options non?

Salt N Turmeric said...

anonymous, of course the higher the premium, the lower the co-pay. but doesnt tht mean tht even if u dont see the doctor, ur stil paying for something? why does it has to be tht way? why cant u only pay when and only when u need it? the insurance co shud refund part of the premium if the payee dont utilise them.

Anonymous said...

Now ain't that the truth? Tell me about it,the system sucks.My thots exactly gurl!Sigh,wish it worked out that way.If U come across an Insurance Co that is not a ripped off let me know ok.In the meantime it might as well be Cest La Vie!