A Typical Panama Healthcare Experience
Aug 16th, 2006 by Don Ray
I know when I started thinking about coming to Panama, one of my concerns was if I could get quality healthcare. I am happy to say that the care I have been given far exceeds what I had hoped for and in many regards causes the care I had in the US to pale in comparison.
Here is a current example. I have been having a problem with my right ear. I have always had a little problem with an over abundance of wax, but that isn’t the current problem. I am getting an infection that keeps flaring up. After the last bout requiring antibiotics and having it reoccur again a 3 weeks later, I decided I needed to have another consultation with my doctor.
The doctor I am going to is an ear specialist. This morning I called to find out when she would be in her office. Many doctors give part of their time to the social security hospital and I didn’t want to go and find out she was at the other hospital. I was told that she was in and to come on over.
I took a cab to her office and had to wait about 10 minutes after checking in at the front desk. When the doctor looked at my ear she said that since it had reoccurred it would be good to get a culture taken to make sure we knew what we are dealing with. She wrote up a request for the lab test, gave it to me and told me to return after the lab had taken it.
The Chiriquí Hospital was where the test was to be taken. The procedure is to go to the lab, present the lab request and then get a receipt that has to be paid at the payment office. This test was $12 and that was reduced to $10.50 because of the jubilado discount. I paid for the test and returned to the lab with the payment receipt.
The test was taken and the results will be back in three days. The time spent at the Chiriquí Hospital was no longer than 5 minutes.
I went back to the doctor’s office and she was waiting to see me. She flushed out the ear with warm water and gave me a prescription to hold me over until the lab results were back. The cost for her visit including consultation and ear flush was $18.
Now if I think back to what would have happened in the US, it would have probably have gone like this. I would have called the ear specialist and been told he was booked solid and could work me in two weeks. After begging, pleading, and promising to just wait for him to work me in, I might get in later that day or the next.
When I finally got to go to his office, I would have to wait in a waiting room with many other patients and maybe get to see him in an hour or two. I would be led to a room and the nurse would take my temperature, blood pressure and ask a lot of questions. She would then put my chart on the door and I would start my second wait.
Probably in 30 minutes the doctor would come in. He would take the chart and ask a lot of the same question that the nurse had asked, but he hadn’t bothered to read the answers to. He would then look in my ear and say, “Hmmm, it does look nasty in there (translation = this is going to cost you a lot of money). He would then take a culture and sent it off to the lab, and tell me that the results would be back in three days and to reschedule another appointment when it was back.
His time with me would probably not have been longer than 5 minutes and a specialist’s time is going to be premium cost. The lab test is easily going to be a hundred dollars. All total it would be easy for me to spend (or my insurance carrier if I had insurance) a couple of hundred dollars for what I paid $28.50 today.
The last time I went to see this doctor she called me the day my prescription was running out to see how I was doing. I call that caring for a patient.
For having doctors that think more about their patient’s care than about their appointment to have their Lexus polished, I think you can’t beat Panama.
Hello!
That’s a great account of how the healthcare system works in Panama. You mentioned it briefly, but I find it amazing that doctors will work at public institutions, and yet still offer a personal touch in their own private practice.
To put it another way, the same great doctors you might have attend to you at private clinics are the same doctors you’ll be attended by at public hospitals, granted the service may be a bit slower.
This is great to know if you should ever need to use a public hospital.
Saludos y un abrazo,
Jimi
Someday I may have a less than favorable experience, but to this point I am very happy.
When I was in Panama City last week, I got a new eye glasses prescription along with new lenses and frames. Total cost $45.
Don,
My glasses have become pretty scratched and I should probably get a new prescription myself - where did you go in PC?
Rob
I went to Optica Lopez at Albrook. I went when I knew that Doctor Sussan would be there. She had been my eye doctor in David and I trust her to do a good job.
Don,
Thanx. I’ll give her a try and say that you recommended her.
Rob
Don Ray,
While not surprised by your experience with the doctor, I think it wise to put some things in context.
For instance, how about emergency care where you are?
How’s the ambulance service? Do they have one close by and can they get to your home 24/7?
For people thinking about moving here, they should realize that while Panama’s health care system works in certain cases, there are very, very big holes in it outside of Panama City and David.
I do not mean to rain on your parade. I just think that setting better expectations is very important.
Regards,
Hunter
First, you can’t rain on my parade, because I don’t have one. Second, I live in David and can only give my impression of the David area. I have some experience in the Boquete area, but that is getting dated. Perhaps my post should have had a disclaimer relating to the David area, but I assume anyone reading Chiriquí Chatter realizes that I live in David.
You are correct, that if you live in remote areas of Panama, then your access to emergency care is limited or nonexistent. A person moving to Panama with significant healthcare problems should really consider what they are doing.
In David you have reasonable emergency care. Probably not the best in the world, but people die everyday on New York, Dallas, San Francisco, London and I would imagine other places do to mistakes, lack of expediency and other causes. I doubt if you are completely guaranteed of getting the proper care anywhere all the time.
The same is true in Panama. I feel certain that the order of best service for health care would be Panama City first and then David. Most other places would refer problem cases to either of those two cities. Boquete would require 30-minute ride to David and in a hard rain that drive can be a little risky.
While emergency ambulance service is available in David and Panama City, I have no idea what exists in other parts of Panama.
Emergency care is a lot different from general care. I would probably maintain that the general care I have had in Panama, far exceeded that that I received in the States. Doctors here have given me far more time and have shown me a lot more concern that ANY I had in the US. Luckily, I have not needed any emergency procedures.
As with anything, there are risks. With healthcare there are probably more risks in Panama than there are in the US. That is assuming you can afford the US costs of healthcare. If you can’t pay for it in the US, then you won’t get it. In that case having better healthcare isn’t worth much.
Most of the time I like to focus on living rather than dieing.