What happens if you need to go to the doctor or pharmacy? Does medical insurance cover expenses in other countries? Or did you get private insurance that does cover you while overseas?

Traveler’s Insurance

I was originally looking into travelers insurance for our trip. Six months was going to cost us about $500 each, which would have covered emergency medical, evacuation (in case of a political or medical emergency), lost luggage and trip delay/cancellations. The trip insurance came with a LOT of restrictions, for example, they didn’t cover anything medical if I had been doing anything they deemed to be dangerous. That left a lot up for interpretation, which I was uncomfortable with… So I did some additional digging.

Medical Insurance

Just before pulling the trigger on the travelers insurance, I called our regular medical insurance (which we both have thru Scott’s work) and found out that we are completely covered in foreign countries, except for evacuations. I pay out of pocket and am reimbursed. For non-emergencies, they require that I call them first to see if they have a recommended doctor in the area.

Seeing a Doctor

Our landlord is a doctor, and his son is an ER tech. It’s nice having someone we know personally who could help us in a medical situation (emergency or non). I’m guessing the English teaching program could also help you.

We haven’t experienced this first hand, but from what I have heard from other traveling friends is that medical expenses in foreign countries are very inexpensive. It’s not like being uninsured in the United States, where having a broken arm could make you go bankrupt.

Prescriptions

Scott and I both have somewhat meds that we take. We talked with our pharmacies about this, and they talked with our insurance about it on our behalf. We were able to get 3mo supplies covered. Anything beyond that we would have had to pay out of pocket for the full expense, to be reimbursed later.

I’m not sure what we would do if we needed to get a prescription filled here, other than talk with a doctor about it.

Home Owners Insurance

As for covering loss/theft, we found out that our regular home owners insurance covers loss/theft of our personal items, even in foreign countries. So, if our apartment or hotel room is ransacked we’d be covered. Pretty sweet.