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The price of medical help on The Way

Dov of the Galilee

Active Member
Time of past OR future Camino
(2017)
A little background and then the quandary…

Leading up to Leon I was in a herd of people that one particular woman became increasingly sick; a head cold by all accounts. On the day I was to arrive in Leon this lady announced at an outdoor café to anyone who would give an ear that her friend tested positive for Covid, she herself was looking terrible and said she was going to get tested. I never saw her again.

As I walked into Leon I started having a low grade fever, I took a single room and spent the next four days isolated nursing the fever. No sneezing, no coughing, just flu like symptoms. I had Covid three years back and I never had been so sick in my life for two and a half weeks, this was not that.

After four days I went to walking. Each night I’d feel like I had a low grade fever and generally “dog’s dish”. I pressed on taking private rooms when they were available but again I had no coughing or sneezing whatsoever.

By the time I got to Sarria I was still with the fevers and now lower GI problems. I had watched many YT videos leading up to this trip and many threads over years time. I always heard that medical help was very affordable and good in Spain.

So I went to a clinic, the receptionist was very kind, took down all of my details and she wanted my insurance card from my home country….now I intended to pay cash, that was not allowed nor was I told how much it would be, I asked and there was no bill given to me after I saw the doctor either.

So I saw the doctor, NO LAB TESTS WERE DONE, he listen to my complaints, my heart, temperature and BP all was in working in order and he gave me four over the counter medicines to take that cost forty euros. He diagnosed with out lab work that I had a “virus” and for the remaining time I was in Spain I never got healed despite taking the medicine prescribed faithfully.

So I received treatment on the 28th of September , the bill was stamped on the 29th of November [ two months later] and it arrived to me here in Israel today. They said my insurance would not pay which does not surprise me that’s why I have TRAVEL INSURANCE and it requires that I pay for the bill and submit for reimbursement. It further requires me to do so within ninety days of completing the journey which has now passed.

The sum they are requiring is 268.34 Euros. If that would have been said up front I would have left even with the traveler’s insurance.

I am flummoxed as to how to proceed.
 
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Dov of the Galilee said:
I am flummoxed as to how to proceed.
Click to expand...

Explain to clinic and ask that that correct date of treatment is issued, explain to travel insurance what has happened it will be grand , or pay the bill and pursue later.
 
I would ask if I could pay by credit card then submit to the travel insurance with an explanation that you received the bill this week. Don't use that agency again if they don't pay would be my advice.

In Spain the public medical centers don't have the ability to take payment on the spot so that isn't unusual.
 
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From the insurance side there is no leeway, why would there be?They got their money and they won't pay out as I've been told.
If I knew the cost before service I would have left but I was told she didn't know before hand and there was no bill after I was seen. In israel I'm a tour guide and I've had many trips to the hospital for rehydration issues, broken arms or foot and Israel has social medicine and surprisingly their take on low cost medical issues is that it is good for tourism. So when I didn't hear from anyone for three months I figured Spain had a similar out look. Apparently not. The clinic wants to only be paid through a bank transfer which I unable to do.

I could send to Spain my travel insurance proof of coverage for that time, explain the scenario and the fact that due to taking more than three months to send a bill my time for filing a claim has elapsed.

Another strange thing is that the envelope has no cancelation mark. So when it was posted is anyone's guess
 

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It's too late for @Dov of the Galilee, but after a couple of medical experiences on the Camino I found that it's best to go to a private clinic or hospital where you can pay with credit card at time of service, and are given a bill to take home to send to your travel insurance right away for reimbursement.

In 2018 I suffered from shin splints, and when I arrived in Santiago I decided to get checked out to make sure that it wasn't something worse. I asked the staff at my hotel where I should go, and they recommended the public hospital. After quite a wait I was finally seen. The doctor basically just moved my leg in different directions and asked when it hurt. No testing or imaging was done, and I was sent off. I tried to find someone to pay at the hospital, but they told me that I would receive a bill later, which finally came a couple of months later in the amount of 361.59 Euros! Fortunately, I was in time to submit it to insurance, but the only option to pay was via wire transfer, which cost me an additional $30.

On a subsequent Camino I fell in a very slippery shower room and cut open my elbow. Before the local health clinic would give me stitches they wanted an Xray done to make sure that a tendon hadn't been cut, so I had to go to the hospital in A Coruña. The clinic recommended a private hospital with an English speaking liaison person. I was able to pay the bill on the spot with my credit card, and the liaison even called my insurance company to get the claim started. When I returned home it was very simple to send them the bill I received.
 
Dov of the Galilee said:
It further requires me to do so within ninety days of completing the journey which has now passed.
Click to expand...
Why don’t people read the small-print. My travel insurance requires me to notify them of a claim within 90 days of the incident giving rise to the claim. NOT make the claim and provide them with all the sodding paperwork and a photograph and a get-well card from the Guardia Civil. Just notice that I will be lodging a claim. That opens the claim process which remains open until it concludes (seldom in the claimant’s favour but that’s a separate matter).

Dov, you didn’t feel very well. You went to a “clinic” (public or private?) where you got told you probably had a viral infection and were recommended to take otc prophylactics. What other outcome did you expect other than a sub-€300 bill. You could have gone to a Farmacia and got the same advice for free and the meds at otc prices.

As to how to proceed: either pay the bill or don’t. Your next challenge will be finding a method of paying the bill. Good luck
 
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When I was in Leon I did just that I went to the pharmacist and got a sack of solutions. Pharmacists can be helpful but they are not physicians, depending on the country they are very bound by laws . As for doctors, they are scientists, exams are part of a work up, blood work and a covid test are facts they exclude or conclude and you go from there in trouble shooting. In situation I had to return home and have that done to get back to being well.

As for knowing the small print, good luck with that! I travel a bit, always have travel insurance, most times I never file $20 , $50 claims, it just seems counterproductive for me but it certainly is your right.

I am of the thought that you should present a bill at the time of service, if they want to extend a 90 day period to pay that's fine. I wonder how many people don't pay? You have no real way of recouping your losses outside of your country.
 
Kathor1 said:
There is nothing strange about this. The stamp on the envelopes where my hospital sends me their invoices look similar. It's business mail.
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For international mail it is strange. But more so the franking of a stamp is legal proof of when it entered into the government mail system. So in my case the contents were signed November 29, but where has the letter been all of this time?Since this is s time sensitive matter the proof is necessary.
 
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Dov of the Galilee said:
For international mail it is strange.
Click to expand...
No. I get international mail with the same preprinted stamp. The invoices that I regularly get from my own hospital (regular treatment) are similar to what you describe: There are 3 dates on my hospital invoices: date of treatment, date of invoice, and date of dispatch (which may or may not be the day when they actually put it in the mail). It's the way their invoicing system works. There are two to three months between the date of treatment and the date I receive the hospital invoice in my letter box.
 
So I,will photocopy their dates , copy the 90 day clause on my insurance and let them fight it out. This cannot be their first go around yet they stick to this . You can buy a coffee everywhere with a credit card but you can't pay a Healthcare service center... and they don't know the price at the time of service? something is wrong.
 
The Covid virus has mutated and changed in the last three years, and an individual's second bout could be very different from the first. Without a test you don't know for sure.
 
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In the US it is very common for the insurance to deny on the first presentation so I would appeal even if you are initially denied.
 
Dov of the Galilee said:
You can buy a coffee everywhere with a credit card but you can't pay a Healthcare service center... and they don't know the price at the time of service? something is wrong.
Click to expand...
The public clinics and hospitals are set up to serve the Spanish citizens and residents who have health cards which give them access to health care often at no out of pocket cost. Their system is not set up to treat foreigners. There's no point in paying to have a business office at the clinic or hospital when most patients are never billed for services.

This is why I recommend using private hospitals and clinics to non-Spaniards and those whose countries don't have a reciprocal health care system.
 
trecile said:
The Covid virus has mutated and changed in the last three years, and an individual's second bout could be very different from the first. Without a test you don't know for sure.
Click to expand...
That is true, this is why I told him the history of the other pilgrim, her degree of illness and that her friend was diagnosed with Covid. You would have thought that a simple test would have been conducted to rule it out.
 
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