Travel Health insurance coverage for emergency medical evacuation
Travel health insurance which includes medical evacuation is a high priority and should be considered before traveling overseas, especially to countries where health care outside the big cities is patchy. A review of available travel insurance options is an important part of any pre travel consultation. Medical care overseas for medical emergencies might involve paying through cash or credit card at the point of service and this could be a large out of pocket expense in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
Visitor health insurance and travel medical evacuation insurance are short term supplemental insurance plans for that provide health care coverage on your international travel and are quite inexpensive when you consider the cost of an overseas travel expense. In addition to covering health care costs of treatment or medical evacuation, the travel health insurer might assist in organizing and co coordinating care and keeping the relatives informed. This is especially important if the traveler is extremely ill and requires immediate medical evacuation.
Even though you might have access to local health care facilities, the quality of local care might be inadequate, and medical evacuation from a place where the resources are poor to a facility where quality care is available might be necessary. Evacuation costs can go as high as $100,000. In such cases, the medical evacuation insurance covers the cost of transportation to a hospital where quality care can be provided. International travel insurance companies who provide medical evacuation have good experience and better resources in different parts of the world. It is important to scrutinize the details of the travel insurance plan before buying it. Some of the important questions that a traveler needs to know about the travel insurance company are:
- Availability of hospitals with the arrangement for the direct payment option.
- 24 hour physician backed support center assistance which is critical for medical evacuation.
- Emergency medical transport to facilities that are equivalent to those in the home country or to the home country itself (repatriation).
- Any situation specific medical services that covers anything that is considered as high risk. Even if the insurance provider is selected carefully, travelers need to be aware of things that can happen that may pose a high risk threat to the health of the individual and reviewing for proper medical evacuation coverage is important.
