do you use private med. insurance onboard?

[ShermanDYAC]

Never mind.

[Raven Days]

I currently work for a health insurance company. Out of network coverage is dependent on the plan. Not all of our plans have out of network coverage. Most if not all providers on the ship or in a foreign country will not be a part of any network. You may be required to pay out of pocket – that can get very expensive (even before services are rendered) and then submit for re-imbursement when you get home. And for out of network coverage’s you may even have a deductible and co-insurance that you will have to meet before your plan will even reimburse you. I know for my own self – my Aetna plan will not cover me for out of network care. My Tricare will cover me world wide but I have to pay out of pocket and then send in the bills for re-imbursement. I say get the trip insurance. It’s a lot less of a head ache and you can even use it as a secondary payor.

[Ken076]

The biggest gamble is medevac transport home. You say BCBS will cover transportation costs to the nearest medical facility. Getting medevaced HOME will cost you $30k plus - I doubt BCBS covers that - it doesn't for me

 

......

 

 

I think you'll find that, like BCBS, most of the Travel Insurance Policies (including CruisLine Policies) only pay to MedEvac to "the closest facility adequate to treat your condition" - I think there are only a few that allow you to choose to be MedEvaced "home". If this is a concern, the purchasor needs to check the policy coverages before buying. ken

[Ms. B]

Hubby and I were to sail on a transatlantic voyage from Rome to NJ last October. We arrived in Rome 3 days early and enjoyed sightseeing. On the day that we were to board the ship, I woke up and had trouble breathing. I figured it was probably from the excitement of going on a cruise. As we walked a block from the hotel to get to our bus to the port, I realized that the breathing problem was getting worse. When we arrived at the port , I neded a wheelchair to get from the bus to the embarcation building. Immediately upon boarding the ship, I went to see the ship doctor. She examined me and did an xray and told me that my lung had colapsed and that I would have to immediately be taken to a hospital. She said that it would take about a week for my lung to be reinflated and that no airline would let metravel back home with a colapsed lung. After examining me and giving me the bad news, Celebrity charged me $255 directly to my sign and sail card. Then they immediately called an ambulance which took me to a small, scary hospital in Civitavecchia, close to the port. My husband was left to find a hotel close to the hospital. We did not speak Italian, and the Italian doctors and nurses spoke little English. That night, around midnight, I was wheeled down a dark scary hallway, to have a chest tube inserted into my lungs. Nit much in the way of pain meedication was offered. The next day, fortunately, I was transferred to a large teaching hospital in Vatican City. THANK GOD i had Travel Guard Max insurance. They had to coordinate a doctor to fly from Canada to Rome to accompany me back to Houston. The hospital physician at first said that I would have to stay in hospital until the chest tube could be taken out. And that they would not OK me to fly home for another two weeks as they needed to ensure that my lung was OK. However, upon learning that I had trip insurance with evacuation coverage, things changed. They contacted my insurance to coordinate my care. I was hospitalized in Rome for 8 days. Although I had Travel Guard it took a while to coordinate the physician to fly from Canada to Fly with me on a commercial flight back home to Houston, The Insurance company also arranged for my husband to be on the same flight as me. I had to fly in business class because I needed oxygen, still had the chest tube inserted in my lung, and had to be able to lie down. My husband was in economy class. My husband had to pay for food and lodging for the 8 extra days stay in Rome while I was hospitalized. Blue Cross, Aetna etc will NOT cover that. In all, the evacuation cost was over $30,000 plus the incidental expenses that my husband incurred, plus the cost to fly him back home. Travel Guard covered All of the evacuation expense, they paid for the cost to fly my husband back from Rome to Houston. Airfare for my husband, booked two days before departure was over $2,000. Plus they covered most of his hotel bill, . In the future, I will supplement with Med Vac because, they will immediately transfer you to a hospital back home. However, what could have been a VERY stressful situation was made a little easier to bear since I knew we had trip insurance. Believe me, you never know what could happen when you travel. Mylung colapse was spontaneous. In other words, it happened out of the blue moon. The hospital bill was sent directly to the insurance comany and they covered it for me. They sent payment directly to the hospital in Rome. NEVER, will I travel without trip insurance. Also, one of our suitcases enjoyed the transatlantic cruise without us. It took us about 2 weeks after arriving home to get the luggage that was left in Rome, on the ship. Celebrity paid for my luggage to get shipped to me from Miami. However, had my luggage been lost, my trip insurance would have covered it GET TRIP INSURANCE. Don't gamble, cause if you do get sick, it could be an expensive, scary porposition if you have to coordinate your hospital stay AND your trip home by yourself.

[Ms. B]

Hubby and I were to sail on a transatlantic voyage from Rome to NJ last October. We arrived in Rome 3 days early and enjoyed sightseeing. On the day that we were to board the ship, I woke up and had trouble breathing. I figured it was probably from the excitement of going on a cruise. As we walked a block from the hotel to get to our bus to the port, I realized that the breathing problem was getting worse. When we arrived at the port , I neded a wheelchair to get from the bus to the embarcation building. Immediately upon boarding the ship, I went to see the ship doctor. She examined me and did an xray and told me that my lung had colapsed and that I would have to immediately be taken to a hospital. She said that it would take about a week for my lung to be reinflated and that no airline would let metravel back home with a colapsed lung. After examining me and giving me the bad news, Celebrity charged me $255 directly to my sign and sail card. Then they immediately called an ambulance which took me to a small, scary hospital in Civitavecchia, close to the port. My husband was left to find a hotel close to the hospital. We did not speak Italian, and the Italian doctors and nurses spoke little English. That night, around midnight, I was wheeled down a dark scary hallway, to have a chest tube inserted into my lungs. Nit much in the way of pain meedication was offered. The next day, fortunately, I was transferred to a large teaching hospital in Vatican City. THANK GOD i had Travel Guard Max insurance. They had to coordinate a doctor to fly from Canada to Rome to accompany me back to Houston. The hospital physician at first said that I would have to stay in hospital until the chest tube could be taken out. And that they would not OK me to fly home for another two weeks as they needed to ensure that my lung was OK. However, upon learning that I had trip insurance with evacuation coverage, things changed. They contacted my insurance to coordinate my care. I was hospitalized in Rome for 8 days. Although I had Travel Guard it took a while to coordinate the physician to fly from Canada to Fly with me on a commercial flight back home to Houston, The Insurance company also arranged for my husband to be on the same flight as me. I had to fly in business class because I needed oxygen, still had the chest tube inserted in my lung, and had to be able to lie down. My husband was in economy class. My husband had to pay for food and lodging for the 8 extra days stay in Rome while I was hospitalized. Blue Cross, Aetna etc will NOT cover that. In all, the evacuation cost was over $30,000 plus the incidental expenses that my husband incurred, plus the cost to fly him back home. Travel Guard covered All of the evacuation expense, they paid for the cost to fly my husband back from Rome to Houston. Airfare for my husband, booked two days before departure was over $2,000. Plus they covered most of his hotel bill, . In the future, I will supplement with Med Vac because, they will immediately transfer you to a hospital back home. However, what could have been a VERY stressful situation was made a little easier to bear since I knew we had trip insurance. Believe me, you never know what could happen when you travel. Mylung colapse was spontaneous. In other words, it happened out of the blue moon. The hospital bill was sent directly to the insurance comany and they covered it for me. They sent payment directly to the hospital in Rome. NEVER, will I travel without trip insurance. Also, one of our suitcases enjoyed the transatlantic cruise without us. It took us about 2 weeks after arriving home to get the luggage that was left in Rome, on the ship. Celebrity paid for my luggage to get shipped to me from Miami. However, had my luggage been lost, my trip insurance would have covered it GET TRIP INSURANCE. Don't gamble, cause if you do get sick, it could be an expensive, scary porposition if you have to coordinate your hospital stay AND your trip home by yourself.

 

CORRECTION - I had Travelex Max insurance NOT Travelguard. I highly recommend either as I have had to file a claim for my son using travelguard

Travelex Max covered medical expenses up to $250,000 and evacuation expenses up to $1,000,000.

Also, the difference between MED VAC ASSIST and Travelex medical evacuation coverage is that with MED JET you will be transferred home to a hospital of your choice immediately. You do have to be admitted to a hospital first though. They will use a jet with inensive care equipment and medical staff on board. However, medical evacuation with most other travel insurance comanpanies could take some time because you have to meet certain "criteria" before you can be airlifted home on a medical jet. Most of the time they will arrange for you to be accompanied by a physician or a nurse on a commercial flight.

[foxesden1]

Your health insurance will NOT cover you outside the US.

 

We had to see the ship's doctor on our last cruise. It was charged to our S&S card.

 

Medivac can be upwards of $30,000. :eek:

 

Buy insurance.

Ours does cover us ( not for doctors appointments) but 911 yes but it dies not give us meds. So I always take that

[FloridaGram]

I had never bought insurance before my 12th cruise. And wouldn't you know it, we actually needed it. Had to go to the medical facility and it was $470 and trip insurance paid it all. So it saved us a couple of hundred dollars to have the insurance.

 

Some policies pay out of the country and some don't. I worked for an major company for 15 years paying claims.

 

I do not think I would go without it again. You do have to pay upfront, it is put on your S&S card. I don't know how Carnival does it but on Disney they go ahead and charge your account once the balance gets to $500. I guess they do not want you card to get to high and your charges to get denied at the end of the cruise.

[FloridaGram]

I currently work for a health insurance company. Out of network coverage is dependent on the plan. Not all of our plans have out of network coverage. Most if not all providers on the ship or in a foreign country will not be a part of any network. You may be required to pay out of pocket – that can get very expensive (even before services are rendered) and then submit for re-imbursement when you get home. And for out of network coverage’s you may even have a deductible and co-insurance that you will have to meet before your plan will even reimburse you. I know for my own self – my Aetna plan will not cover me for out of network care. My Tricare will cover me world wide but I have to pay out of pocket and then send in the bills for re-imbursement. I say get the trip insurance. It’s a lot less of a head ache and you can even use it as a secondary payor.

 

There are some trip insurance plans that pay primary and some pay secondary. I choose one that pays primary, they are about the same price. Then you do not have to go through the hassle and wait of your regular insurance to pay or deny the claim and then refile it with the trip insurance. Also a lot of plans have lifetime maximums so these costs would not be applied to your lifetime max.

 

Also as another post said, with the insurance they coordinate your care to get home. It would be a nightmare for you or your family to coordinate at a stressful time.

[mn311601]

You would think from reading these boards that people are just getting injured and medevaced from cruise ships everyday. Except for having my appendix out years ago, I've never been sick at all and never needed a hospital. Is it that cruises get the older crowd, why is everyone going on a cruise so injury prone and sick? Are the news stories correct, from this board it seems that going out of the country is extremely dangerous.

[snorkelgirlca]

I have worked for a major health insurance company my entire career so hopefully this will be helpful advice.

 

1). Insurance benefits not only vary by the carrier (BC, Aetna, UHC etc) but also by the employer group. So lets say you work for a big company like United Airlines or Marriott, they pick what benefits you have in and out of the country so you can also call your HR department and ask.

 

2). Even if your benefit plan has out of the country coverage any services you receive on the ship will fall under your out of network benefit level. Typically Carnival physicians are not part of any network. They bill your sail and sign card and you can submit to your insurance carrier (health plan and/or travel insurance) when you get home. Believe me I know - sister with kidney stones a few cruises ago.

 

3). Some benefit plans have out of the country benefits with some assistance. Call the 800 number on the back of your ID card and ask for help. They may contract with an international vendor who can look for an in network provider, assist in currency conversions, appointments, etc.

 

Hope this helps! Any other questions just send me a message and I would be glad to help.

'

 

SHE IS RIGHT. ps I am licensed to practice law in CA.

 

Could not resist adding my own two cents.

 

About 15 years ago my mother and her sister went to Ireland on a Princess Tour. They bought the travel insurance. (they were both in their mid 70's) My aunt fell on one of the day tours and broke her knee cap. She did not go back to the ship but straight to the hospital on land. Medical Treatment in Ireland was free (they had socialized medicine). Both my aunt and my mom were on Medicare-United Teachers so the treatment would have been out of network but covered at network fee if there was a fee. But there was no fee for medical treatment in a country which has socialized medicine even for the US travelers at that time

 

So what you have to do is find out about the medical treatment available in each country you have a port stop. Frankly, if I was that sick, or that worried about getting sick, I would have stayed home to begin with. But if you are the type of person who cant relax on their trip unless they know ahead of time the answer to every potential problem, you should do an internet search for the type and cost of medical treatment in each port you plan on stopping in and then call your own medical insurance carrier/provider to find out if they cover (and at what rate) treatment outisde the US. Not the travel insurance carrier as it is secondary to the coverage available via medical insurance. Most of these travel insurance policies cover trip interruption or transportation costs if you cruise is interrupted by a covered event. (and they specify what is a covered event too)

 

The real cost was that my aunt had to come back to the USA on the concorde with licensed medical staff person from Ireland. That was the only way the doctor in Ireland would release her. Thank goodness she had a unlimited AEX card. And this was 15 years ago.

The final bill was $10,000 mainly for the cost of the transportation back to the USA and the cost for the helper's airfare. Eventually the claim was paid, but not until I got involved and threatened to file litigation.

 

So the poster who said that it is the transportation cost which is the killer was right. Most travel insurance is a reimbursement type policy, meanaing that you get to fork out the money up front and then they pay you back eventually. So if you dont have a credit card with that kind of a limit you might want to stay home if you are concerned about how you would pay the bill if you got ill while on vacation.

 

and no many policies do not cover the cost of sending the casket back. That happened to a friend of mine about 10 years ago when her Dad died while on vacation in London (and you dont get credit for the unused airfair just because the person is not in their seat and down below in the cargo hold, You get to pay a new fee for the casket being returned to the US.

[T. Advisor King]

In considering the responses, bear in mind that people who needed to use their insurance are far more likely to post a story than those who didn't. Saying that "x-in-law had a heart attack and had to be medivaced" is a story. Saying "I took a four-day cruise to the Bahamas and nothing happened" isn't. I'd guess that fewer than 1 in 100 who buy travel-related insurance ever use it. If it was much more than that, the insurance companies couldn't stay in business.

 

For years we would get annual out-of-country medical insurance, only to discover recently the both my work-paid health plan and my wife's work-paid health plan cover out-of-country medical expenses, including medivac, etc. So it does pay to check.

 

I wouldn't take a long/far trip without medical insurance. On the other hand, I wouldn't have necessarily purchased travel insurance for a weekend overnighter over the border.

 

Cancellation insurance, however, is another story. That is just "insuring" against a loss that I know I can already absorb (if I've already paid for it, then obviously I can absorb it). You are virtually guaranteed to lose on cancellation insurance because that is how insurance companies make money. They charge more than it costs. They are the house. The house always wins.

 

So I'm willing to roll the dice on a winning bet if the maximum downside of not getting cancellation insurance is that I won't get reimbursed for a trip I've paid for, don't take, but can obviously afford. I know the odds are in my favour that I'll be out more money over the long run if I buy the insurance than if I don't.

 

I won't roll the dice on medical insurance because I'm unwilling to bear the risk of significant financial hardship.

[Donray]

So, what if you have to see the ships doctor, they add it to your sail and sign, and you do not have the cash or a credit card to pay the bill before you leave? Then what....

 

Bad credit rating, never cruise again, collectors buging you, judgement agaist you, etc.

[HImom]

Probably if you explain the situation & pay it in FULL as soon as you get back to your home (even if it means taking out a loan), it should not be a major issue. If you refuse to pay or are unable, that's when you'll start having a lot of the above consequences.

[breenw]

We have always had Blue Cross insurance and had to seek medical care for our son back in 2003 on the Carnival Glory. We paid for his care on our S&S account (the amount wasn't near as expensive as I thought it would be). We turned in the receipt and filled out a form available from BCBS and they reimbursed us very quickly.