bitofarambler

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You’re Thai? Cheers.

Congrats on the influx of US patients and good on you, they need the help.

If a random dentist and I compete performing root canals, I’m banking on the dentist. Not my interest.

Travel experience, information and providing reliable sources about life and medical care abroad? You are the layperson here.

You may be a relative expert in a narrow field, but getting upset doesn’t change any of the facts about world-class Thai dentistry, better medical care abroad or plummeting healthcare quality in the US.

you don’t know what you don’t know

Exactly.

… some of the many very common misconceptions…

I dispel travel misconceptions spread by anyone, even US dentists.

Not all work can be evaluated…

All work can be evaluated, some evaluations will draw indeterminate conclusions regardless of which country the evaluation is performed in. That is the nature of diagnosis.

Patient satisfaction and surveys are complete worthless bullshit

Patient surveys are very good supplemental indicators of the professionalism and quality of an institution and their provided medical care.

…your subjective experience and tried to use that to say the work is objectively good.

These are facts, not your feelings.

Transparent fee charts, equipment audits, contracts, insurance, warranties, international accreditation, consults, the increase in medical care abroad itself are relevant medical quality data.

Ask any orthopedic surgeon…

I’ve consulted with dozens of dentists and doctors about many aspects of medical care in at least a dozen countries.

…what they think of foreign procedure mills…

Ask anyone what they think of manipulative healthcare practices in any country. They don’t like them.

Ask the banned women dying in parking lots in the US, the bounty hunted pregnant women from Texas, US kidney stone sufferers permanently damaged because they were waiting in the ER for 14 hours, US patients denied dentistry or other care because they cannot afford fabricated fee schedules dictated by healthcare monopolies that do not guarantee quality care.

The US healthcare system leans profit-driven, not patient-focused, and that is reflected in the low quality and accessibility of care in the US, regardless of the talent of some US medical professionals. They work in a broken, predatory system.

…one chance…fixing it is either impossible…

Yes, and this has no bearing on the quality of medical care internationally.

Yes, health care is risky everywhere ,and many countries provide the same or better healthcare than the US at a more affordable cost with easier access to care. Yes, health care can be difficult for doctors to perform everywhere, and many countries provide the same or better healthcare than the US at a more affordable cost with easier access to care.

You can fuck up a tooth in an instant. Destroyed. Cannot be fixed.

All the more reason to receive the highest quality medical care as soon as possible at a reasonable cost. The US cannot provide that type of care to most of its citizens. Wait times are harmful or fatal to many US patients. Other countries can provide the highest quality medical care without delay at a reasonable cast to both their citizens and disadvantaged foreigners like US patients. Other healthcare infrastructures function better and can help more people at a lower cost.

how can you know the work done was good? You can’t.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to check the efficacy of medical procedures.

You can get x-rays, MRIs and all sorts of after-care examinations performed by your choice of trusted doctors and dentists if you are unsure of the quality of care you received.

A strong indicator will be how you feel after the procedure, which is why I include patient surveys in all of my posts about medical care abroad. Very importantly, other than the higher-rated equipment, expertise and report accuracy, patient satisfaction regarding care quality in Thailand is rated higher than in the US, for example.

With a poorly molded crown in the US, because the fabs are often located outside of the clinic or hospital, it can be 2-3 weeks before I get to try the next crown, which someone unfamiliar with my case is creating from specs without a personal consult from my dentist.

I see where you are coming from, it is the most frequent response to high-quality medical care abroad:

Dental tourism scares the hell out of me

This anxiety about the unknown often colors how people react to any situation outside their experience, but there are plenty of ways to ease yourself into receiving higher quality medical care abroad: translators, medical insurance, expat meetups so you can get used to an idea you are unfamiliar with.

This next part though, is simply wrong.

With dental tourism you get no follow-up care

Incorrect. This applies to most medical care destinations outside of the US; follow-up care is essential abroad and is usually presented in a contract and verbally confirmed with you before any diagnosis even takes place, let alone a procedure. You have access to all the documents and files your hospital abroad does and are also free to share those or ask your hospital to share the documents with other doctors and clinics of your choice.

With Thai dental care as an example, they explained the bullet points of my diagnosis, proposed treatment and after care, and then I had a twenty-minute discussion with my doctor before choosing a gold crown. We did a scan, 3 days later I went in for a fitting. My crown wasn’t seated perfectly, so my dentist quickly made the call to send it back downstairs(in Thailand, their fabs are located in the same building as your dentist) and told me to come back tomorrow for a now highest-priority new printed gold crown at no extra charge. I returned 18 hours later, they scanned my medical ID card, cemented my new gold crown which fit like a glove, and I was out in 15 minutes free of charge. after again receiving the highest quality of care from a doctor and hospital i trusted and appreciated.

You can purchase as many extra bells and whistles as you want with your chosen care package, but the basic warranties have been more than enough for me; my crowns have lasted more than a decade(knock on wood with me).

That works, although the Thai medical field is so heavily regulated that scams are uncommon. They want our medical dollars to keep rolling in.

If you have any concerns, go to an international clinic. Heavily regulated, highest-tier equipment/care, everyone is at least bilingual, transparent total fee charts available before anything takes place, they are totally worth the slight fee bump.

I hear India is good for cardiac surgeries, although at this point I plan to continue going to Thailand for everything until something changes.

that’s great!

thank you, I’m always interested in other firsthand accounts to pass on to all the Americans and travelers who ask me about healthcare in different countries.

Dental work is my most common healthcare experience abroad. I cannot recommend Thailand enough, especially for dental work, nothing but 5 out of 5 dentistry for me so far.

3rd-party analyses and patient surveys rating Thailand higher than the US in health care these days are included in the link above. and here, why not?

the US lost so many battles against corporate monopolies that now 4 companies own the majority of the US healthcare system.

i suggest medical care abroad if you’d like similar or better healthcare at a much lower price. travel offers much more than a vacation.

dang that vietnamese chili shrimp i shared in travel from osaka is probably right up there.

i have not had as good pizza in italy as i have had in several countries, but I prefer a strong, thick tomato sauce, which is very light in Italian pizzas that I’ve had, although the Italian fired crust is consistently better.

i prefer indian momos to chinese jianjiao: less oily, more consistently flavorful and healthy.

Where are sandwiches from!?! Because I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a sandwich as much as I enjoyed the Colombian barbecue chicken patacones that use plantains as bread. holy crap that is good and enough food for three days.

The Japanese have perfected the cheese cake, way more decadent without losing any of the flavor.

oh dang though, you know what, a Venezuelan living in Colombia made the best sushi I’ve ever had, and the best salmon belly sashimi I’ve ever had.

try lists. i schedule tasks on my phone.

none of my tasks are big, 20 pushups a day means about 600 a month.

or one step in a larger task, going to a store to see if they have the right fabric for a mosquito net. whether they have it or not, if i go, that’s a task complete. I cross it off the list and now I’m in the process of completing the larger task of making my bug net.

“hey, Google. Remind me every day at 9 am to do 20 push-ups”

or for single tasks “hey Google, remind me in 5 seconds to check daiso for a hammock ridgeline.” I might not do it for four days, but the task is there reminding me that I have something I want to do.

And yesterday daiso hsd a perfect elastic cord, so I got to mark the task complete yesterday and now my hammock has a ridgeline.

tasks today:

Just did my situps

Talking to people around the world and people being kind, even after they find out im originally from the US.

despite the terrible things the internet and the news tells us to fear from people, most people in real life are compassionate, understanding, empathetic and like to laugh.

Sure! get any remote job that pays ~$500 USD equivalent per month and live abroad.

You’ll be down to working a couple hours a day maximum and can pursue your interests, hobbies or get to know yourself and figure out what you want to do next.

details over in the travel community. or ask here.

yea, esl teachers often need a work visa depending on the country, but schools generally sponsor your visa if they hire you, so that’s all taken care of by the school staff or they’ll walk you through the process. if a school doesn’t offer to sponsor your visa, they’re not worth the trouble.

it was awwwesome and i got to retire very early, so it’s tough to complain about anything.

Really there were no challenges with the job itself, speaking basic english and playing learning activities with a bunch of respectful, dedicated, cute students for 45 minutes at a time(including a 10-minute break), watching them improve and leaps and bounds evey week, get paid USD $35 per class minimum. Rent/food/everything pennies on the dollar. My most expensive apartment was about three hundred and fifty U.S. dollars right in the middle of Beijing, but the studio I rented the longest was $120 a month. 4 classes and my monthly rent and utilities were paid for.

the only challenges were with other administrators after i ended up co-owning the school that hired me, they were pretty bad at business and it was frustrating to see this extremely successful business that was fun to work at run so poorly.

oh, i was in beijing, so the smog was the other main challenge, but it’s such a comfortable and convenient country to live in, I still ended up staying there very happily almost six years altogether, and have great friends that I still talk to and actually just visited last month.

Wayyy more ups and downs.

there are tons of chinese cities that aren’t smoggy, but Beijing was where I started and that was my journey.

Thailand does have a lot of beet farmers. and beat farmers.

thanks.

1. i was very dissatisfied with the amount of lifetime my job in the US was taking from me with so little in return, so when i came across an ad for English teaching that advertised half my hours double my pay i applied, when i was offered the job right away, i accepted, made a bunch of money for 3 years, had savings and plenty of breathing room, invested most of my savings.

2. with breathing room, i thought about what i wanted next and how much it cost:

i wanted to never work again unless i wanted to, basically retirement. I had traveled a bit and realized that with 200 countries, i could literally choose my cost of living and cost of retirement. i picked Thailand to start my retirement since i had visited before and knew the costs. i needed $250 USD/month to start($100 month for a hostel, $150 for food and beer).

i had nearly that coming in from investments, so i signed up for a conversational English speaking app and doubled my income to about $500 per month by chatting 5 hours a week. i used the extra money for private places, extra food and beer, renting a moped, museums, etc.

i traveled for a year working up to 5 hours a week, received an offer to open my own school in China, went back and saved money for two years until i had plenty of passive income to lived abroad indefinitely(USD 500+/month), and here i sit 8 years later, on the way to jeju south Korea after a month in Mongolia, Japan next week.

advice: make a change sooner rather than later, time is finite.

…sooo basically the FAQ in the travel community, hahaha.

All over. I like learning and exploring, so I move every few months. I’m in Mongolia right now.

Starting out from the US, Medellin is very comfortable, Cusco is great too. If you’re up for Asia, Thailand is amazing.

You can also stay in a single country longer or permanently, I move around because I like to.

That struggle is very real and has been for a long time.

There are lawyers fighting for civil rights and elections happening, plenty going on, but there is also a mass disillusionment about the undeniable disadvantages of living in the US that you’re picking up on.

I started living abroad 15 years ago because of the broken social compact in the US and it is shocking how much worse the US got so quickly since then.

It’s very comfortable living abroad, way cheaper, better food, better medical care, better a bunch of stuff. Head over to Travel or shoot me a message if you’re interested.

Very cool. I’ll check them both out, thanks