Files claims only for big medical bills

I read about the traveler who, while on a hiking tour in New Zealand, came down with a respiratory illness, left the tour and took a bus back to Queenstown but did not seek a physician because it was Saturday afternoon (Feb. ’16, pg. 16). Instead, she stayed in a hotel for a few days, then took her scheduled flight home, where she submitted a trip-interruption claim to her travel insurance company. Her claim was denied because she had no note from a doctor attesting to the severity of her illness.

Anyone in a similar situation who intends to seek compensation will need complete documentation of a physician’s diagnosis… in English. If you’re ill, even if you’re out in the boondocks, find a clinic, emergency room or doctor and go there whether it’s morning, noon or night. Don’t wait until the symptoms go away.

I have visited doctors, clinics and emergency rooms all over the globe. (Lucky me, I always come down with serious sinusitis and never seem to have enough antibiotics.)

For example, my husband and I were staying in an apartment on Île Saint-Louis in 2012 when I came down with a sinus infection. Paris has a nifty system in which, if you call the SOS Médecins (phone, in France, 3624 [€0.12 per minute], www.sosmedecins.fr [in French only]), a physician will come to your hotel or apartment — one hour from the initial phone call to the doorbell ringing. 

I had our concierge make the call, since he spoke French, but the SOS Médecins phone representatives do speak English. I think that my visit from the doctor cost €130 (then about $150), payable at the time of the visit.

I also can speak for the superior private-hospital outpatient facilities in Bangkok (x-rays led to a diagnosis of recurrent sinusitis and a prescription in 2006) as well as a public clinic in Jerusalem (diagnosis of sinusitis and a prescription for about $120 in 2015).

If a treatment costs me less than $200, I don’t bother to send in a request for reimbursement to either my private insurer (even though I am covered “anywhere in the world”) or to our travel insurance company. Why? It’s too much of a hassle, and it seems they always find a way to shave off the expense so that you’re reimbursed for very little.  

However, I have seldom paid more than $180 for any medical issue while traveling, even for the doctor visit in Bangkok that included x-rays (and they even had a hospital concierge whose job was to accompany any foreign patient throughout the medical visit).

While on a Yangtze cruise with Victoria Cruises in 2013, I fell in Beijing’s Forbidden City and ended up with a blood infection. The Chinese doctor on our ship cleaned the infection site and prescribed antibiotics. All that cost only about $80. If it had been over a couple hundred, however, I would have made sure I had complete diagnosis/outcome info printed in English.

GLORIA PYSZKA

Palo Alto, CA