Hey Elle, sorry that you had to go through all these hoops in the United States just to get proper care. I knew it was bad, but when you told me all the runarounds that you've been giving, and the wait times! That's the most shocking thing to me because I've always assumed that just because you guys pay so much for medical care, you'd get immediate service.
Incidentally, I'm actually typing this from a hospital room after having surgery. I saw the GP who gave me a referral letter to see the doctor on Monday, Wednesday I made my way to the specialist. If not for some insurance mix-up I would've had an MRI and admitted the same day. The earliest slot I had for the MRI was Friday morning.
On Friday, I had my MRI appointment, then I saw the doctor after lunch after an hour's wait, then it was off to X-Ray, I got admitted, and a few hours later I was operated on. The whole thing was so fast I wished it was slower because I couldn't process the idea that I was going for an operation.
But this is a private hospital in Malaysia. If it was a public hospital, the wait times will be much longer. My parents were both government servants so their medical care is mostly free. I once had to wait almost a day with my dad for a bed because the hospital was packed. But he got it after about half a day, and it was a single room (due to his level of seniority in civil service.)
While most Malaysians' healthcare is almost free, it doen't apply for every case. In some rare cases where the medicine isn't subsidised, insurance would have to take care of it. A friend of mine, who had no insurance, had to raise money for her very expensive meds for her rare form of cancer. She was treated at a public hospital - The medicine was so expensive, it was in the five figures. Her case is rare, but it does happen, which is why many are still urged to have insurance.
That said, another friend of mine who had cancer only had to pay RM,1000 or so (about US$250) for her entire treatment, which included chemo, operation, hospitalisation, meds, the works. Another friend who had severe pneumonia ended up with just RM36 bill (about US9?). My mum who goes to the govt clinic for her meds, often comes back with boxes of medication. The clost? Just acouple of ringgit. (US$1 or so.) The government clinics are always very generous. I once went to the govt clinic and was given a BOX of medication! In private clinics it's usually 10% that. We are so, so greatful for the government clinics.
Malaysian healthcare is not perfect. Our govt hospitals are straining, and our doctors are overworked. But we Malaysians are also incredibly fortunate that we can choose between private and public hospitals, and we definitely do not have people in suits telling us whether we qualify for this or that treatment.
I can walk to a specialist without a referral letter, and just get treatment. (Have done so.) In the private healthcare sector, treatment is supposed to be prompt and fast. If it's slow we will certainly complain. For the government hospitals, we know that the queue is long, and we don't complain because we know that in the end, it wouldn't cost us our house.
I hope you get better soon, and hey, when you come back to Malaysia next, let's hang out and I could tell you more about the medical services here.
Wow, you are a testament to how incredible your medical system is. That you were able to get in and get treatment so quickly, even requiring surgery, is pretty amazing (and probably, in a lot of cases, lifesaving). I'm glad you were able to get taken care of, and I hope you're better soon!
As for the care and pricing — $250 for cancer treatment is absolutely unheard of! Is that at a private hospital? Or public? And just how long are the wait times if you go the public route? Do you still have open access to doctors in the public domain (no need for referrals, etc?).
I'll be back in Malaysia in March, though pretty close to Singapore. But I'll reach out once I start planning my travels!
US$250 is public (government) hospital rates. It includes medication too. Her case was urgent and she was attended to ASAP. In Malaysia, it's a triage thing - urgent cases go to the front.
However, it is TRUE that govt wait times would take longer. But for urgent cases like my friend's they often speed things up.
And yes, you still have open access to docs in public domain. We have government health clinics, and you can just walk in to get treatment. These folks will usually refer you to the hospital if your case is more complex, but I once just walked into the hospital emergency dept to see a specialist at a govt clinic. And my friend casually mentioned to me yesterday she did the same.
Yes, I hope I'll be able to see you then. If you need more info about healthcare in Malaysia before your trip, and anything else, just ping me! I'll see how I can help ;)
PS: I may write about my experience soon. I'll send you the link so you'll know more about it (though prob on my personal website.)
Dang, you're making me want to move to Malaysia and become a citizen so I can take advantage of this. I'm American and the last several years have made me feel like, y'know, *insert head exploding emoji here*. For the first time in my life, I'm legitimately wondering if I need to start making plans to leave.
Anyway, thanks so much for sharing. I found you via a link on a post by Simon K Jones (I'm just starting to discover all kinds of cool writers on here) and I'm so glad I did. :)
I had a massive stroke a few years ago followed by a cancer diagnosis the same week. I was carried out of my house to an ambulance and when I was finally admitted I was force given a medicine for something other than the reason I was in the hospital. I had repeatedly told the doctor I did not want this medicine…it want’t relevant to my diagnosis. He ignored me and did it anyway. I don't believe I have ever felt so violated….and I've been raped before. This was infinitely worse. The charge nurse on the floor during my “medical kidnapping” was overheard by me telling her staff to tell me “ that she was in charge” not me. I felt like I was in a prison, not a hospital. If you ever need to go to a hospital, any other country in the World is a better bet, on every level. Professionally, financially and for your dignity. Look at medretreat.com; they can help with arrangements and logistics. I am still so angry.
Thank you, of course, but I didn't relay it for sympathy. I relayed it as a warning: This is here NOW. Every hospital in America is like this or worse. Filled with petty dictators and poorly trained, nasty people who finally have someone in their power…who can't complain. What are you going to when you are already in their grasp? I complained to the state medical board; they declined to look into it. The whole thing is a giant tar baby. And it's built that way on purpose. So, if you want to keep your dignity and maybe even your freedom, you'll avoid going to any hospital in the USA. The other part of this which I forgot to mention was how drug pushing went on…they were after me constantly to take pain pills which were dispensed as oxycodone in 15 mg pills, no less. For my pain. Yeah, right. The real pain would have begun as I tried to wean myself off of those highly addicting pills. No smaller doses were ever offered…just kept pounding me about taking my pills. This is highly dangerous practice.
I went to a private hospital in Penang, every big city has a lot to choose from, and they all seem to operate like this. Nomad Capitalist first turned me on to Malaysian healthcare, its constantly featured there as one of the best places worldwide for medical tourism.
This is something I have thought a lot about. How great would it be to have one day out of the year devoted to getting every annual health test/screening we need done in one place. I'd settle for that and wouldn't even mind getting the results a few days later if we could refine this process. Seems to me American medical doctors should start a movement to create clinics like this. I'm sure there are a few out there, but not enough. (Comment from Elizabeth P. Shugg, editor of Backroad Portfolio.)
I’m an American doctor living in Dhaka, Bangladesh for the year. We’ve had to manage a health issue for our son while in Dhaka. He got an X-ray, US, MRI all in a 4 day period (and saw a pediatrician and plastic surgeon in that timeframe). The MRI was $154! Long story short, they don’t have the right specialist here so we are looking at a different country to go to for care, but what I noticed is that the efficiency is crazy high here. It’s almost treated like a factory. There’s so many people that need tests here and they really try to get people in, which is so different from US healthcare. The cost is much cheaper. It’s crazy you pay $6K and don’t even get the right preventative care. Only downside is not having specialist access but even then, in some systems in America, you don’t have the right specialists. It could be so much better in America, the bureaucracy definitely clogs the system and greed makes it much worse too.
What a juxtaposition! I'm sorry your son is struggling to get the care he needs. Though wow, that really is crazy efficiency in Bangladesh. Even if you need to go to another country for a specialist, you'd probably get care quicker than waiting for one to free up in the US. It really is wild how bad we've let the bureaucracy and inefficiencies affect our system.
This is exactly what we feel in Romania as well: "I’m more afraid of having to deal with the US healthcare system than I am of actually getting the disease. It’s the anxiety around getting care that feels so stressful."
Hi Elle, Thanks for article on your Malaysia medical experience I retired 3 years ago and decided to leave the USA for Europe where the medical system isn’t as expensive as the USA and it’s not going to bankrupt you, as a resident of Portugal I can get free healthcare but as I didn’t pay into the system I decided that it wasn’t fair for me to get free medical care so I opted to buy private insurance for my wife and I, when I was sent the bill to pay for the private insurance it was 1,200 euros and being from the USA I thought it was a monthly charge so I called the insurance company back and said that is way too expensive please cancel it and to my surprise the person said it was for a full year and I didn’t have any copay but I could get it cheaper if I did a copay.
I’m in constant shock every time I get a prescription filled at the pharmacy and the pharmacist gives me a bill and the medication is less than 10 euros.
I think our problem in the USA is the political system is broken and need to be fixed so we can have politicians that can see that the rest of the world provides better healthcare for a lot less and it not socialism it just caring about people.
Hey, great read as always. Wow, this is just mind-blowing! The efficiency and affordability you describe for the Malaysian healthcare system are truly incredible. It makes me wonder about the brilliant logic behind their operations, making everything so seamles. Thanks for highlighting such an important alternative model.
Malaysia has a public and a private healthcare system. The public system is low cost but not free. Certainly some services are free, but not all, and medical appliances are not covered. (In Canada, my new knee was free.)
The public system is overburdened, resulting in long wait times. What you enjoyed as a medical tourist was the private system.
Administrative costs in US health care are approx 25% of the total. Eliminate them completely and you’ll not be paying anywhere near as little as you paid in Malaysia.
You completely ignore the enormous difference in salaries and other localized costs. You’re paying so little as a medical tourist more because of those than anything, I suspect.
This is a main reason why I'm living in SE Asia. Couldn't quite believe it when I first experienced it myself, but it was an instant "never going back" moment for me.
Hey Elle, sorry that you had to go through all these hoops in the United States just to get proper care. I knew it was bad, but when you told me all the runarounds that you've been giving, and the wait times! That's the most shocking thing to me because I've always assumed that just because you guys pay so much for medical care, you'd get immediate service.
Incidentally, I'm actually typing this from a hospital room after having surgery. I saw the GP who gave me a referral letter to see the doctor on Monday, Wednesday I made my way to the specialist. If not for some insurance mix-up I would've had an MRI and admitted the same day. The earliest slot I had for the MRI was Friday morning.
On Friday, I had my MRI appointment, then I saw the doctor after lunch after an hour's wait, then it was off to X-Ray, I got admitted, and a few hours later I was operated on. The whole thing was so fast I wished it was slower because I couldn't process the idea that I was going for an operation.
But this is a private hospital in Malaysia. If it was a public hospital, the wait times will be much longer. My parents were both government servants so their medical care is mostly free. I once had to wait almost a day with my dad for a bed because the hospital was packed. But he got it after about half a day, and it was a single room (due to his level of seniority in civil service.)
While most Malaysians' healthcare is almost free, it doen't apply for every case. In some rare cases where the medicine isn't subsidised, insurance would have to take care of it. A friend of mine, who had no insurance, had to raise money for her very expensive meds for her rare form of cancer. She was treated at a public hospital - The medicine was so expensive, it was in the five figures. Her case is rare, but it does happen, which is why many are still urged to have insurance.
That said, another friend of mine who had cancer only had to pay RM,1000 or so (about US$250) for her entire treatment, which included chemo, operation, hospitalisation, meds, the works. Another friend who had severe pneumonia ended up with just RM36 bill (about US9?). My mum who goes to the govt clinic for her meds, often comes back with boxes of medication. The clost? Just acouple of ringgit. (US$1 or so.) The government clinics are always very generous. I once went to the govt clinic and was given a BOX of medication! In private clinics it's usually 10% that. We are so, so greatful for the government clinics.
Malaysian healthcare is not perfect. Our govt hospitals are straining, and our doctors are overworked. But we Malaysians are also incredibly fortunate that we can choose between private and public hospitals, and we definitely do not have people in suits telling us whether we qualify for this or that treatment.
I can walk to a specialist without a referral letter, and just get treatment. (Have done so.) In the private healthcare sector, treatment is supposed to be prompt and fast. If it's slow we will certainly complain. For the government hospitals, we know that the queue is long, and we don't complain because we know that in the end, it wouldn't cost us our house.
I hope you get better soon, and hey, when you come back to Malaysia next, let's hang out and I could tell you more about the medical services here.
Wow, you are a testament to how incredible your medical system is. That you were able to get in and get treatment so quickly, even requiring surgery, is pretty amazing (and probably, in a lot of cases, lifesaving). I'm glad you were able to get taken care of, and I hope you're better soon!
As for the care and pricing — $250 for cancer treatment is absolutely unheard of! Is that at a private hospital? Or public? And just how long are the wait times if you go the public route? Do you still have open access to doctors in the public domain (no need for referrals, etc?).
I'll be back in Malaysia in March, though pretty close to Singapore. But I'll reach out once I start planning my travels!
Hello Elle,
US$250 is public (government) hospital rates. It includes medication too. Her case was urgent and she was attended to ASAP. In Malaysia, it's a triage thing - urgent cases go to the front.
However, it is TRUE that govt wait times would take longer. But for urgent cases like my friend's they often speed things up.
And yes, you still have open access to docs in public domain. We have government health clinics, and you can just walk in to get treatment. These folks will usually refer you to the hospital if your case is more complex, but I once just walked into the hospital emergency dept to see a specialist at a govt clinic. And my friend casually mentioned to me yesterday she did the same.
Yes, I hope I'll be able to see you then. If you need more info about healthcare in Malaysia before your trip, and anything else, just ping me! I'll see how I can help ;)
PS: I may write about my experience soon. I'll send you the link so you'll know more about it (though prob on my personal website.)
Wow, this is pretty incredible. Unheard of in the US. If you write a more in-depth post about your experience definitely send it my way.
Dang, you're making me want to move to Malaysia and become a citizen so I can take advantage of this. I'm American and the last several years have made me feel like, y'know, *insert head exploding emoji here*. For the first time in my life, I'm legitimately wondering if I need to start making plans to leave.
Anyway, thanks so much for sharing. I found you via a link on a post by Simon K Jones (I'm just starting to discover all kinds of cool writers on here) and I'm so glad I did. :)
It's pretty awesome, even as a non-Malaysian citizen! And that's so cool you made it here from Simon, he's the absolute best!
He is!!!!
I had a massive stroke a few years ago followed by a cancer diagnosis the same week. I was carried out of my house to an ambulance and when I was finally admitted I was force given a medicine for something other than the reason I was in the hospital. I had repeatedly told the doctor I did not want this medicine…it want’t relevant to my diagnosis. He ignored me and did it anyway. I don't believe I have ever felt so violated….and I've been raped before. This was infinitely worse. The charge nurse on the floor during my “medical kidnapping” was overheard by me telling her staff to tell me “ that she was in charge” not me. I felt like I was in a prison, not a hospital. If you ever need to go to a hospital, any other country in the World is a better bet, on every level. Professionally, financially and for your dignity. Look at medretreat.com; they can help with arrangements and logistics. I am still so angry.
Wow, I’m so sorry that happened. That is an absolutely terrible experience. 💕
Thank you, of course, but I didn't relay it for sympathy. I relayed it as a warning: This is here NOW. Every hospital in America is like this or worse. Filled with petty dictators and poorly trained, nasty people who finally have someone in their power…who can't complain. What are you going to when you are already in their grasp? I complained to the state medical board; they declined to look into it. The whole thing is a giant tar baby. And it's built that way on purpose. So, if you want to keep your dignity and maybe even your freedom, you'll avoid going to any hospital in the USA. The other part of this which I forgot to mention was how drug pushing went on…they were after me constantly to take pain pills which were dispensed as oxycodone in 15 mg pills, no less. For my pain. Yeah, right. The real pain would have begun as I tried to wean myself off of those highly addicting pills. No smaller doses were ever offered…just kept pounding me about taking my pills. This is highly dangerous practice.
Thank you for the post. What a difference... Would you mind sharing the name of the hospital you went to? How did you first hear about them?
I went to a private hospital in Penang, every big city has a lot to choose from, and they all seem to operate like this. Nomad Capitalist first turned me on to Malaysian healthcare, its constantly featured there as one of the best places worldwide for medical tourism.
This is something I have thought a lot about. How great would it be to have one day out of the year devoted to getting every annual health test/screening we need done in one place. I'd settle for that and wouldn't even mind getting the results a few days later if we could refine this process. Seems to me American medical doctors should start a movement to create clinics like this. I'm sure there are a few out there, but not enough. (Comment from Elizabeth P. Shugg, editor of Backroad Portfolio.)
I’m an American doctor living in Dhaka, Bangladesh for the year. We’ve had to manage a health issue for our son while in Dhaka. He got an X-ray, US, MRI all in a 4 day period (and saw a pediatrician and plastic surgeon in that timeframe). The MRI was $154! Long story short, they don’t have the right specialist here so we are looking at a different country to go to for care, but what I noticed is that the efficiency is crazy high here. It’s almost treated like a factory. There’s so many people that need tests here and they really try to get people in, which is so different from US healthcare. The cost is much cheaper. It’s crazy you pay $6K and don’t even get the right preventative care. Only downside is not having specialist access but even then, in some systems in America, you don’t have the right specialists. It could be so much better in America, the bureaucracy definitely clogs the system and greed makes it much worse too.
What a juxtaposition! I'm sorry your son is struggling to get the care he needs. Though wow, that really is crazy efficiency in Bangladesh. Even if you need to go to another country for a specialist, you'd probably get care quicker than waiting for one to free up in the US. It really is wild how bad we've let the bureaucracy and inefficiencies affect our system.
Such a good post. I've heard good things about the Malaysian health care system, but this really sells it to me. How incredible.
Amen, and hallelujah! Great analysis!
This is exactly what we feel in Romania as well: "I’m more afraid of having to deal with the US healthcare system than I am of actually getting the disease. It’s the anxiety around getting care that feels so stressful."
It's not a fun feeling. Sorry you have to deal with that too!
Hi Elle, Thanks for article on your Malaysia medical experience I retired 3 years ago and decided to leave the USA for Europe where the medical system isn’t as expensive as the USA and it’s not going to bankrupt you, as a resident of Portugal I can get free healthcare but as I didn’t pay into the system I decided that it wasn’t fair for me to get free medical care so I opted to buy private insurance for my wife and I, when I was sent the bill to pay for the private insurance it was 1,200 euros and being from the USA I thought it was a monthly charge so I called the insurance company back and said that is way too expensive please cancel it and to my surprise the person said it was for a full year and I didn’t have any copay but I could get it cheaper if I did a copay.
I’m in constant shock every time I get a prescription filled at the pharmacy and the pharmacist gives me a bill and the medication is less than 10 euros.
I think our problem in the USA is the political system is broken and need to be fixed so we can have politicians that can see that the rest of the world provides better healthcare for a lot less and it not socialism it just caring about people.
Hey, great read as always. Wow, this is just mind-blowing! The efficiency and affordability you describe for the Malaysian healthcare system are truly incredible. It makes me wonder about the brilliant logic behind their operations, making everything so seamles. Thanks for highlighting such an important alternative model.
Malaysia has a public and a private healthcare system. The public system is low cost but not free. Certainly some services are free, but not all, and medical appliances are not covered. (In Canada, my new knee was free.)
The public system is overburdened, resulting in long wait times. What you enjoyed as a medical tourist was the private system.
Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Malaysia
Administrative costs in US health care are approx 25% of the total. Eliminate them completely and you’ll not be paying anywhere near as little as you paid in Malaysia.
You completely ignore the enormous difference in salaries and other localized costs. You’re paying so little as a medical tourist more because of those than anything, I suspect.
That seems expensive for a Malaysian though.
What an odd statement. "For a Malaysian?" I actually thought Elle's charges was on the low end and wondered where she got such good prices lol.
Their healthcare is nearly free.
Kuala Lumpur is one of many cities in Asia that make the USA feel like a "third world country." Travel really changes how you view the world...
Seriously, it's amazing!
this is why we live in asia :-)
Good choice!
This is a main reason why I'm living in SE Asia. Couldn't quite believe it when I first experienced it myself, but it was an instant "never going back" moment for me.
Seriously! I'm not far behind you, it just isn't sustainable to age here.