The other day, I was chatting with a friend who’d just come back from Mexico. Being the travel insurance geek that I am, I asked if she was covered. Much to my surprise, she said no. She told me she didn’t think she needed travel medical insurance in Mexico because healthcare there was so cheap. I’d never heard this before, but it was intriguing enough to look into.
Surprisingly High Healthcare Costs in Mexico
Our claims department was able to provide me with some costs from various claims we paid out in Mexico, and they looked a little something like this:
- 1 night in the hospital, heat-dehydration treatment: $1,600
- ER treatment for a sprained ankle: $800
- 1 night in the hospital, finger surgery: $10,195 of which MSP (at the time) paid $290.88
- 6 nights in the hospital, kidney failure treatment: $145,000
A Claims Story
A 73-year old customer of ours unfortunately ended up in the hospital for 10 days. A couple weeks into his trip, he developed an infection in his knee. This was related to his prosthetic knee that had been replaced about a year before his Mexican vacation. His hospital bill came to over $150,000!
Healthcare in Mexico is definitely not cheap. Although it’s more affordable than healthcare in Canada and the US, it’s still not as easy on the pocket as my friend imagined. I can’t really speak for other countries out there, but this goes to show that you should do a bit of research around healthcare costs before you leave for that trip.
Want to learn more about how much your provincial healthcare actually covers when you’re out of Canada?
Need to know what to look for in a good travel medical insurance policy?
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