Mar 24, 2008

Medical and Dental Vacations

When I walked into my personal trainer's fitness studio the other day, I noticed a red bump on her stomach but figured she must have hurt herself accidentally. A few minutes into our conversation, though, I found out that she had recently returned from a medical "vacation" in Mexico. Uninsured, when her belly button ring got infected, she put off seeing a doctor for too long. The small infection grew and by the time she decided to get it checked out, she needed surgery. Prices in the states would have been too high, so she called up an old friend who worked at this clinic in Mexico that hooked her up with super low rates for the procedure.

I don't need any medical attention right now, but in my efforts to find out more about affordable dental work (I have a gap in my teeth that I absolutely hate and my teeth aren't as white as they probably should be) I started to look into dental vacations. Apparently these medical and dental vacations are all the rage these days.

As my income starts to increase, one of the things I want to save for is dental work. But in the states, it almost seems to be not worth the high cost to fix my teeth. I'd be nervous about getting a bad dentist but with the proper research I'm sure I could find top-notch dentists who could fix my teeth that cause me great insecurities.

It's so interesting and sad that lots of people in the States have to to go to Mexico and other countries to be able to afford healthcare and related services.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going through this right now. As I sit her typing I have stitches in my mouth from dental work I just had done 5 days ago. It is going to cost me over 5k when it is done. I don't think I'd leave the country for dental work but I would definetly think about leaving for medical procedures. I used to work for a neurosurgeon in Beverly Hills that travels to Russia twice a year and performs surgery for American patients because it is cheaper for them.

Anonymous said...

I'm still paying off some dental bills from last year. This post definitely perked my interest. I did think about shopping around for a good but more reasonable priced dentist here in the Bay area, but I hadn't thought about a dental vacation :) Food for thought

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