Tomorrow was our last day in Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India, and my 21-year-old and I had a day of serious shopping ahead of us before taking the overnight express train to Chennai/Madras. Then over dinner Laura remembered, “I should get this cavity filled here or Dad will ask me why I didn’t see the dentist in India.†Dad regularly travels abroad for dental care, and I agreed it would be foolish not to get this done while in India.
Returning to the hotel, I asked the owner if he could recommend a good dentist. “We have an excellent clinic right here in Fort Cochin. I’ve sent several guests to them, and everyone has been very happy.†At 8pm he reached the appointment desk, and they scheduled Laura for an examination at 11am between other patients.
With summer heat rising in mid March in southern India, I elected for an air-conditioned taxi to the dental offices. With shoes off at the door of the beautiful marble and stone building, we were quickly whisked into the examining room of the Vettickattil Dental Clinic. Examination of the tooth and x-rays revealed the cavity had been ignored too long. The chief dental surgeon, Dr. Biju Phillip, patiently explained the process to the daughter who has to practice meditation techniques when a needle comes near her.
Painless Procedure for Mouth & Wallet
With equipment and facilities of first-world class, the dental practice was the same. An anesthesia was rubbed onto her cheek before injection of novacaine (two + for Laura to be numbed). The whole process took two hours. Then she had a glass of lemonade while we visited for awhile. We paid the (also painless) bill, then continued on with our shopping, had a late lunch, and at 8:30pm took a taxi to the train station. Laura had forgotten she’d had a dental procedure, needed no pain pills, and the procedure was never mentioned again.
The average price for a root canal in the US is $1,300, which was just about the cost of her flight from Seattle to Chennai. The bill for the root canal was $110. Our only regret was that she didn’t do the work earlier in the week so that the crown could have been prepared and fitted. For the crown in Seattle she can expect to pay $1,000 to $1,200, almost as much as a return ticket to India, which she would opt for I expect.
Aryuvedic Hospital stop Enroute from Seeing Elephants
All medical care in Kerala felt effortless. Enroute back to Fort Cochin from a 3-day excursion to a wildlife sanctuary, I told the driver that I’d like to visit an Ayurvedic hospital the next day. Thirty minutes later he pulled into the gate of the Rajah Island Ayurvedic Hospital, and we were ushered onto a boat to take us to the island to see the doctor on call.
Think island luxury resort, not hospital. Booked to capacity with Europeans from December into March, the Rajah Hospital is slowing down as summer approaches. I report my M.D.’s tests on kidney function, and we linger on the veranda watching guests practice yoga while we wait for the herbal preparations. An hour later I have a bag of liquid herbs to strengthen the kidneys and stomach. Total cost: $11. I initially used Ayurvedic medicine while living in Dubai with outstanding results; I’m expecting nothing less now.
Medical Tourism is Smart Route
With the ease of travel today and the greatly improved travel conditions abroad and first-world training of the medical professions, I’ve said before when medical or dental costs at home are exorbitant, pick up the phone and call your travel agent.
A friend who didn’t take this advice instead took out a second mortgage on her home and paid a US dentist $35,000 to rebuild her teeth. He could buy a second home in Thailand (or two) with that fee—another country where she could have had the procedure done for a fraction of the cost.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, President
www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Archive for March, 2007
A Painless root canal for $110—in India
Saturday, March 31st, 2007The U.S. Healthcare Racket
Monday, March 12th, 2007To many Americans an on-going battle with the health insurance company on what, how much or why aren’t they going to pay our medical bills feels like a “racketâ€.
We consumers may very well have had it right all along. Two New York hospitals have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s second largest healthcare provider, and several of its affiliates. The affiliates, owned by UnitedHealth, specialize in “claims denial management†and fight the insurer (the parent company) over who’s going to pay the bill.
So—let’s see how this works. The consumer pays the insurance bill. The doctor, hospital, or patient/consumer submits the bill to UnitedHealth. UnitedHealth has specialists that search for ways to escape paying the bill (“claim deniedâ€â€”it’s insurers’ standard response). The “appeal†is sent to a subsidiary of UnitedHealth, and knowing who’s paying the bills, we can guess the outcome of this “claim denialâ€. The set-up looks like a tail-chasing racket any consumer would recognize.
New York State’s suit already settled
The New York State attorney general has already brought charges against UnitedHealth for misleading clients on provider status. The company settled the state’s charges, blaming the errors on computer glitches and paying restitution to plan members. Could there be enough payment for the emotional aggravation of dealing with insurers?
The lawsuit alleges that patients were falsely told that Flushing Hospital was not a network provider so that the insurer didn’t pay the full network rate. The legal outcome hinges on whether deception was involved, whether UnitedHealth deliberately mislead plan members. A question for the court, for how many years can you blame the computer software? Isn’t “downtime†measured in minutes or hours, not months or years?
Excessive US costs: Administrative and Drugs
The ones who pay for this tragic healthcare system are the consumers/patients. We pay for the insurance and then pay the bills when the insurer doesn’t. A recent study by McKinsey & Co. showed that that the US spends $98 billion annually in administrative costs—this is only what the insurance companies spend in their tail-chasing racket. It doesn’t account for what doctors, hospitals, and consumers spend in time and resources arguing with the insurers.
McKinsey was investigating why American healthcare is twice as expensive as the next nations’ costs, Canada and France, both of which have universal health coverage. Administrative costs are the biggest factor, and the second largest tab was for pharmaceutical drugs, $66 billion annually.
Other Universes in Health Matters
Not only do we pay more for prescriptions, but America’s doctors are only taught to use drugs in treating ailments unlike other nations’ physicians (my note, not McKinsey’s). Another factor in what doctors’ services charge has to be the exorbitant liability insurance the members of the AMA pay due to the drastic side effects of drug treatment. Naturopaths, chiropractors, homeopaths don’t cause such harm nor have such insurance costs.
The cost of providing full medical care to America’s 46 million uninsured McKinsey estimated to be $77 billion. Presumably that’s in the current pharma/AMA/insurer paradigm. There are whole other universes on how to manage health. I’m in southern India this month, visiting the state of Kerala where the life expectancy is 78+ years and the annual cost per person is $38.
Namaste!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, WomensMedicineBowl.com
The Ill Advice of the AHA
Thursday, March 1st, 2007The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association…they’re a part of the American landscape. Such benign organizations, we trust them, we donate money, we join them. We are fools.
Many years ago I concluded that if I ever had to deal with cancer, my first source of information for a cure would be the Blacklist of the American Cancer Society. The ACS has harassed, attacked, and blacklisted every physician (especially rogue M.D.s) who has a high (therefore visible and threatening) success rate of curing cancers. Read the full story of the ACS organization and (some of) its outrageous antics in The China Study.
We are fools to forget that every organization is limited by education and personal interests of its directors and members.
Last week the American Heart Association released “new†guidelines for women’s heart health. Recommendations on lifestyle improvements aren’t new: weight control, increased exercise, quit smoking, though the report does advise eating fresh fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products.
HRT and Vitamin E are Out
The AHA did bow to the outcome of the Women’s Health Initiative and recommends NOT taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) to prevent heart disease. They also knocked off the platter two nutrition supplements that have long been considered staples of heart health: Vitamin E and folic acid.
Citing two studies of vitamin E, the AHA found the studies indicated vitamin E didn’t support a robust heart. What the MDs conducting those studies didn’t understand (or didn’t want to understand) was that were using synthetic vitamin E (and their subjects were gravely ill), and they were correct—synthetic Vitamin E is fairly useless even for those of us who would be considered in good health. I inadvertently used the dl-alpha tocopherol form for some weeks until my well-being was slipping, and I re-read the label of the brand I had trusted. Now I remember the useless synthetic as damned liar-alpha.
But Drugs are On
However, this latest guideline from the organization we want to trust does recommend two drugs. All women over age 65, even if healthy or at low risk for cardiovascular disease, are advised to take daily doses of aspirin. The AHA must have missed the 10-year study of 20,000 women over the age of 45 who took 100 mg of aspirin every other day in a clinical trial. The subjects over age 65 reduced their stroke and heart attack risk by one-third, but then they had a 40 percent increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding—so severe that transfusions were required in some cases.
Then the report recommends reducing LDL cholesterol to less than 70mg/dL, which is impossible without drugs. The figure of 70 LDL is the recommendation of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP). Shortly after the NCEP made this recommendation a report was released that revealed that seven of the nine NCEP panelists had financial ties to Pfizer (the maker of Lipitor); five had served as consultants to Pfizer and seven had financial ties to Merck (maker of Zocor). Furthermore, half of all heart attack victims DON’T HAVE HIGH CHOLESTEROL.
These associations are invested in the conventional use of drugs as this is the scope and limits of their directors’ education. The AHA claims all the correct values and ethical practices we want in an organization we trust, but they’re limited by education and financial interests. There’s no real “diversity of thought†or “climate of opennessâ€.
As for my cardiovascular health, I’ll be ignoring the AHA’s guidelines and sticking with CoQ10, vitamin E (d-alpha), grape seed extract, hawthorn berries, primrose oil, black cohosh, and, oh, the AHA did recommend an omega-3 supplement. Try various combinations, and if you feel better it works for you.
Our WMB mantra: I’m an experiment of One, and I’m the only one that Matters. That means You.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
