Mark I did not know you were in the hospital otherwise I would have come to visit you the most important thing is your back home and your well GOD Bless

Morti and anyone else over 60. i have just been checking through providers in thailand and came accross "ING" they sponsor renault and fernando alonso, anyway they do really cheap accident insurance and will cover 61-70 year olds so have a look morti!!!
http://www.inglife.co.th/pages/eng/prod ... nt_pad.asp

It really pays for anyone (even tourists) to have some good traveller's insurance. I messed-up
my foot rather badly a few months ago and avoided going to hospital because I thought it
would be 20-30K for essentially nothing. Well, months later it eventually healed. I suspect I
cracked some little bone in there and it's OK now but had I not been such a cheap fu_k and had
insurance I could have gone and gotten it looked at properly. This all pales in comparison to the
serious motorbike accidents some fellas have been involved in. Im just a whiner.

Dave that leaves me out I am 71

aznyron wrote:Dave that leaves me out I am 71

Read it carefully . You will see it excludes anyone over 60 joining. If you join before that age they will extend the cover until 70.

aznyron wrote:Dave that leaves me out I am 71

Older than sin!!

and twice as ugly!!!

And obnoxiously straight forward Not to mention LOUD,but I like him anyway

All in all not much good news for older expats here. I will finish move in early 2010, retired, and my medical ins from work stays with me, free. The catch is I will be "out of area" and will only be covered for 50% of costs. As stated before US medicare doesn't follow out of country so I will probably just take the 50% and hope. I saw the major hospital the Thai's use in Udon when brother-in-law had motorbike accident. I told the wife, don't ever bring me here. By the time we left I had several elbows in the rib cage and was told to "zip mouth, you not Thai". I understand the private hospitals are better. I hope so, staying on the balcony is not my idea of a room. It was cheap though .

don't know about udon,but the private hospitals in phuket will not accept u.s medicial insurance reason given problems getting paid.worth looking into

sgt wrote:All in all not much good news for older expats here. I will finish move in early 2010, retired, and my medical ins from work stays with me, free. The catch is I will be "out of area" and will only be covered for 50% of costs. As stated before US medicare doesn't follow out of country so I will probably just take the 50% and hope. I saw the major hospital the Thai's use in Udon when brother-in-law had motorbike accident. I told the wife, don't ever bring me here. By the time we left I had several elbows in the rib cage and was told to "zip mouth, you not Thai". I understand the private hospitals are better. I hope so, staying on the balcony is not my idea of a room. It was cheap though .

On your next visit check out AEK. The staff in the international dept explained to me that they work many types of foreign medical insurance. In my case they will contact my provider for pre-authorization for inpatient procedures only. Also, while I was there they entered my info into the hospital database and was given a patient ID card with bar code on it. So if sh*t happens they already have a head start and are not messing around with who is going to pay for this or that.

papaguido, thanks for that info. I'll give AEK a visit when I get back. Pretty sure I will have to pay up front and get rembursment (with luck) later. Good idea for the patient ID card.

I plan on having a long sit down with the reps this year so the specifics are understood by both sides. I have been fortunate and have never had to really use them, once for knee injury and a couple of times for doc visit. We have an employee clinic that is free so unless it is a big problem I use them. Yearly check ups, blood tests, lab work, meds all for free. That I will miss. I don't know of any problems with our work insurance failing to pay, but things may change quickly once I am out of the states. It is a gov't plan, not a private company.

I also will have to pursue a disablity with the VA. I had a plan with them and used the VA in New Mexico but dropped out after moving back to Texas, where no one wants to go to VA hospital, and they wanted to charge me. Maybe things will change at the VA now that the old regime is gone. I believe the nearest VA facility is in PI.

Sgt,

Are you familiar with VA's Foreign Medical Program (FMP). Here's the link:

http://www.va.gov/hac/forbeneficiaries/fmp/fmp.asp