This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

For Canadians: Who purchased travel insurance before going for treatment? Anyone purchase blue cross travel insurance? What plan, what did it cover and how much did it cost?

Hi TR,

I made extensive inquiries about medical insurance in the event of complications and ending up in the hospital. No insurance of this kind available. Travel insurance is available through vitually everyone e.g. banks, insurance companies etc. We have travel insurance through my wife's employer. Hope this helped.

PN

Hi TR76,

I checked into Blue Cross & found it was much more expensive than the rates I got from CAA. I am in the USA for 3 months, so I had to find a reasonable policy for healthcare. The thing with Alberta Blue Cross (maybe it is different in other provinces)... they add a surcharge just because I have a condition (MS). It doesn't matter to them that I am very stable. With CAA, as long as I had been stable for a period of time, I was fine - no surcharge for my MS. I can't remember what the period of time was, tho. I purchased a yearly travel plan, which allows me to be out of country for 30 days. Then any trip over that 30 day period, including this 3 month trip, they do an add on. It cost me under $300.00 for this annual plan & the add on for this 3 month frame. I elected to purchase an annual b/c I am tentatively booked for April/May to travel back to the USA for treatment, so now my insurance is handled for that trip & any other I choose to take up until Dec, 2011. Hope that helps, but don't hesitate if you have any questions... shoot.
Deb

The medical benefits through most employers include short term travel insurance. There is no coverage for complications from elective treatments though. Most people are purchasing additional travel insurance unnecessarily.

_________________
CCSVI procedure May 31, 2010
RRMS - Official diagnosis January 2009
MS symptoms since at least 2000 (EBV trigger 98?)
75 - 80% Resistant Stenosis in Left Jugular - Stent
Tokuda Hospital, Bulgaria (Dr. Petrov)
Immediate and substantial results!!

I was actually going to clarify that - up until last January, we had AB Blue Cross group benefits through an employer, but in Jan, 2010 we became self-employed & switched to a non-group Blue Cross plan which no longer covers travel ins, but even with our history with Blue Cross, I was still being charged a lot more b/c of the condition I have.... that has been my experience with this insurance issue

As an insurance broker in Winnipeg, I would highly recommend that you check the wordings of any travel insurance policy prior to purchase. Make sure that they do not exclude coverage when you specifically travel for a medical procedure. Travel insurance was never meant to cover complications from a medical procedure and you would not want to count on it without reading the fine print.

Thanks for the advice everyone, much food for thought!

inexpensive
http://www.kanetix.ca/travel-insurance-plp

It was over a year ago when I and some other Canadians were looking into this, trying to get quotes from some international medical travel insurance providers. In the end, they would only insure if a procedure was being done by an institution on their list, and they didn't have time (or interest?) in doing the due diligence on Euromedic in time to be useful to us. So, between my regular employee-group travel policy, Canadian Medicare and the fact that Euromedic promised to care of any complications within Poland, I figured almost all eventualities were covered and didn't bother to pursue it any further.

I think that some (or all?) of the medical tourism companies include medical travel insurance in their fees, but you would have to check the fine print to make sure that most eventualities are covered.

...Ted

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Dx SPMS in 2004.  Liberated 29/04/2010.
My blog: www.my-darn-ms.blogspot.com

hi all,

this is something that anyone traveling for care needs to think about.

i am originally from Canada and have had many people come down to Minneapolis to be treated.

my understanding is that traveling insurance will not cover any complications related to medical tourism.

although unlikely for there to be any significant problems, if anything does goes wrong in the US it could be horrifically expensive. some institutions may have prearranged pricing or discounts if something does go wrong and you require extra care beyond what was initially planned.