Every body wants to know about the famous pharmacies here in Mexico — especially those of retirement age. Can you really get your medicine over the counter at a fraction of the cost? The answer is yes… and no. …
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
Living or retiring in Mexico, if you don’t feel comfortable taking all of the risk for payment of your health services through private coverage, you could opt to pay for a formal health care insurance plan that would cover you in case of unforeseen, large expenses. These plans are sold by insurance agents and paid to large companies such as ING or Mapfre.
Retired people will know that when you are over 64 you can no longer qualify for coverage. It’s the same in Mexico. If you are under 64, here is a basic outline of formal healthcare insurance in Mexico.
There are two plan types, which are generally sold as seperate policies. The first is “Gastos Medicos Mayores” (Major Medical Expenses) and the other is “Gastos Medicos Menores” (Minor Medical Expenses).
“Mayores” is for the big stuff like accidents and long term sicknesses. …
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
“Menores” is for the yearly stuff such as doctor’s visits, preventative health, lab tests, etc. …
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
Back to Retirement in Mexico: Private versus Public Health Care
My personal wish for everyone who comes to live or retire in Mexico is that they don’t have to use IMSS. I had IMSS as a “benefit” when I worked as a regular, full-time employee (this is called nomina) at a language school in Cuernavaca.
All IMSS personnel and facilities are serving about 5 times as many people as they should be expected to serve. Under these conditions, even professional, kind people cannot give good care. You will hear that the best doctors work for IMSS, which I don’t doubt is true, but because of the under staffing and underfunding and Mexican version of the good-old-boy network, those doctors end up serving their acquaintances and clients who know them through their part-time private practices.
I was quite under-joyed with my so-called benefits. For retired people from the U.S. and Canada, the reality of IMSS is quite shocking; even dangerous.
If you want to, stop reading right here. I don’ t have anything good to say about IMSS — especially not for retired people, who may actually need to use the service. In fact, you may not even qualify for it. See Mexico Connect to read about the exclusions.
If you feel the need to read the bad news, let me start by telling you about how IMSS almost killed my husband.
When my husband broke his arm he was brought to the IMSS emergency room where they set his shattered bone without anesthetic and then put him in intensive care with no blanket. When I got there he was shivering from shock and there were no blankets available, but they lied about it and said that “the laundry would come in the afternoon.”
I stood there in the center of the circular intensive care bay and scanned the open-ended cubicles surrounding me. Each patient had a different type of blanket. None of them seemed institutional. They were crocheted, fuzzy — all looked distinctly brought from home. Just coming down from shock myself (I had just come from the scene of the accident were the police didn’t bother to tell me how my husband was, but I could see the state of the vehicles that had been involved in the accident.) I went out to the street and around the block to a public phone (there are none inside) and called a friend who lived nearby and asked her to bring a blanket that she didn’t care if she didn’t get it back.
The light in the bathroom on the intensive care floor was out and my husband had to leave the door cracked to pee. His shoes had been removed by the ambulance staff, so he stood on the floor, sticky from pee, in his socks. I could smell the reek of urine from outside. No soap nor paper were provided.
Two beds were crammed into each cubicle designed for one. The lady next to him had the tubing for her bag of blood draping over him.
After a day, he was transfered to normal care where no pillows were provided to elevate his arm. Once a day a doctor would come and say that they were waiting for the swelling to go down on his arm in order to pin and cast his shattered arm bones, but they continued to leave his arm down by his side. (No, I didn’t figure out that we had to elevate it because I was running around getting soap, toilette paper, and clothes for my husband and a lawyer to help us get through the attacks by the insurance company and the public assistance people who were saying that they were there for our protection, but getting belligerent. I learned later, from the lawyer that they were posturing for bribes.)
No food was given to him because he was “going into surgery” but the surgery wasn’t even scheduled yet. I have no idea what would have happened because the insurance of the person who caused the accident finally kicked in and my husband was transfered to a private hospital where he was immediately prepped for surgery and I cried spontaneous tears of relief.
The line to enroll at and do other paperwork at my clinic is usually long. A 30 minute wait is normal. You’ll see elderly people standing there on their swollen feet.
Once you get inside, there is one row of plastic chairs along the wall, facing the little reception desks for each little doctor’s office. The plastic chairs are full, and people who can’t get a seat stand up. The receptionists are grumpy.
The floors are so dirty it looks like — I can’t think of another place where I’ve ever seen floors so dirty. You can see black dirt caked thick wherever people’s feet don’t keep it thin. …
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition). Click here to read more.
I have more horror stories than these, but I think that is enough to make it clear that I would not recommend living or retiring in Mexico if IMSS were to be your only source of health care services.
Back to Retirement in Mexico and Health Care
or
Back to Retirement in Mexico and Health Care: Private Hospitals
Without getting into details, I’ll tell you one of my experiences with a dishonest doctor so that you’ll know what to watch out for when you live or retire in Mexico.
I got a referral for a doctor from a fellow expatriate from the U.S. The doctor charged a moderate amount on the pay scale (300 pesos per visit) and was a gentle, friendly person.
The author of this website has prepared an e-book that honestly talks about expat life in Mexico.
At first I was very pleased with this doctor, but eventually came to a crucial cross-roads with him. I asked him for information about a condition that I thought I might have. He used that opening to withhold information from me about tests available from local laborartories and to recommend that he perform an expensive, invasive, and unnecessary surgery on me. …
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
In addition to the huge difference in the morals exhibited by these two doctors, there was a difference in the professionalism demonstrated by their receptionists. The former doctor’s receptionists would make appointments for times such as 6:30 and 7:00, but when I got to the office, I would wait until 9:00 p.m. to see the doctor. If it was because he was regularly detained, why did they not use my phone number which they had in their appointment book to call me and ask me if I’d like to arrive later or reschedule my appointment? As a retired person, I’m sure you don’t want to sit and get flat-butt in a waiting room for hours.
At the honest doctor’s office I wait….
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
When you live or retire in Mexico, get referrals from friends and acquaintances, but be your own advocate. It may be necessary to switch doctors in order to get the kind of care you deserve.
Savvy retired people will be asking, where do these private doctors treat their patients in emergencies? The answer is that there is an extensive system of private hospitals at which private doctors provide services. Just like doctors, the hospitals vary in cost, quality, and variety of services provided.
At first, these hospitals will strike the recently retired in Mexico as more like clinics. They are generally small, often converted buildings with jury-rigged ramps, etc. Each hospital hires it’s own receptionists, nursing staff, and cleaning staff. They also own the equipment there, such as X-ray machines and other things that most of us take for granted will be at hospitals.
One of the reasons Mexicans give for having IMSS insurance is that the large IMSS hospitals in Mexico city are better equipped than private hospitals. They reason that, if they are at a hospital, they want to be sure that the necessary equipment will be available on location.
If you have a special condition, such as diabetes, it would be smart to list all of the hospital equipment that you may need….
The rest of this section has been moved to Mexico: The Trick is Living Here (Second Edition).
Back to Retirement in Mexico and Health Care
As you move toward your goal of retirement in Mexico, it’s helpful to
| What about Mexico’s famous pharmacies? |
understand the health care “system.” I put “system” in quotes because it’s not as systematic as in the U.S. and definitely not as systematic as in Canada, which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Click here to see a description of an e-book that honestly talks about expat life in Mexico.
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“Julia Taylor writes about living in Mexico… with the definite knowledge of an insider. She shows us a side of the Mexican people and their belief systems that you would never find out about, unless like her, you really get to know the people.
“If you want real insights into Mexico, its people, and how to live like a Mexican, this is a must read.”
Suzanne Marie Bandick www.suzannemariebandick.com
Author of: Only in Mexico, You Say? The Humorous Side of Living in Mexico
I’ll start by describing the basics of how people who live in Mexico access health care services and branch from there into specific topics. You can decide how you might fit into the picture once you retire in Mexico. Having a general picture of how it all works will help you to make a smooth transition and to take advantage of the advantages while softening your exposure to the disadvantages.
Mexico has two different types of health care, which are referred to as private (particular) and public (seguro). You can decide which you want to participate in when you live or retire in Mexico.
There are two major groups in the public health care system. They are IMSS (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Soccial or Mexican Social Security Institute) which is available to many people working at private institutions as well as immigrants to Mexico –including retired people — and ISSSTE (Instituto de Seguridad y Servicio Sociales de los Trabajadores or Security and Social Services Institute for Workers) which is available to employees who work for the state and other public institutions.
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Private health care in Mexico can be terrible or it can be wonderful. It depends on what you make of it. When you retire in Mexico you could have the kind of personalized, professional care that you can only dream of in Canada or at your HMO in the U.S.
On a service for service basis, the cost of care in Mexico is much lower than in the U.S. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you have to pay for it out of pocket (unless you opt to pay for health insurance), which can be quite expensive if you are earning in pesos.
Private health care in Mexico isn’t a formal system at all. Doctors….
Due to their common experiences, other expatriates are generally the best people to ask for referrals. Of course, when you first live or retire in Mexico, you might not know anyone, so you could start with the yellow pages under “medicos” (and there are tons; over 60 pages in the Cuernavaca yellow pages!). Those who speak English list that in their advertisement. Another good option is to see if there is a Newcomers club in your town and ask them for a referral. You can also put a post up on an expatriate forum such as Expat Focus. Once you find a professional, honest doctor then they can become an excellent resource for referrals to specialists in other fields.
If you don’t like the first doctor you find, try another. I’ve gone to some doctors based on referrals and felt like they were just stringing me along to get me to come back and pay them more money. I’ve also found a couple of doctors who are professional, helpful, and give help over the phone without charging.
I don’t think that it’s necessarily true that more expensive doctors are always better, but so far I’ve had better experiences with the doctors that charge more. One of my favorite doctors is also an expatriate from the United States (and she charges on the higher end of the scale).
This section has been moved to the all new Second Edition of Mexico: The Trick is Living Here.
Note: There are also private hospitals in Mexico, which work differently than those in the U.S. and Canada.