Non-Adventures in Health Care: Daniel’s Fractured Finger

I must be prophetic.  After raising the spectre of paying a heavy financial price for a minor sports injury in the US, I fractured the middle finger of my right hand only days later wile playing Gaelic football.  My interactions with the health care system had so far been limited to amazement of the low cost of a wisdom-tooth removal.  Now, having visited an ER, a GP and an orthopedic surgeon all within a week, I feel that I can openly declare the US system a failure in comparison.

First, let’s talk about costs.  My ER visit totaled 53,000KW (US$1 is roughly equal to 1,000KW) and included both X-rays and a three-day prescription for painkillers and anti-inflammatories.  This was the single most expensive visit to a medical professional.  I then went to my GP, who took X-rays and passed them on to the orthopedic surgeon.  That cost something like 7,000KW. The surgeon took one extra X-ray to get a different angle, then replaced my bulky arm cast with a finger splint.  11,000KW.  Now I have had two visits on top of that.  One more X-ray to check progress, plus physical therapy (ice pack and lasers): 10,000KW.  Today, just physical therapy: 7,000W.  So far my total cost for breaking a finger has been under US$100 and includes several trips to a private specialist, located in a city famous for its per capita income.

Next let’s talk about efficiency.  At the ER I was admitted immediately upon provision of my Resident Alien card. They didn’t even have a waiting room.  They sat me down, found a doctor whose English was up to snuff (or who was confident enough to speak to me, not sure which) and in less than 40 minutes I had been X-rayed, casted, and sent out the door.  My GP’s waiting room is run like a bank or post office: Grab a number, wait your turn.  X-rayed and out the door in under 45 minutes.  At the surgeon’s office, instead of grabbing a number, I am in the computer and my name is displayed on a wall monitor, along with my place in the queue.  When the doctor is ready for me, he hits a button and my name flashes up, read aloud by the computer.  (The future is here and it sounds like Stephen Hawking has a hot sister.)  Including my physical therapy, I was out of the office on Saturday morning in under 45 minutes.

In most of these cases, my doctors spoke a level of English far surpassing their daily need for the language.  My ER experience didn’t quite meet this standard but the doctors here still knew all the relevant medical terms and were able to inform and instruct me clearly, with no ambiguity.  Could the same be said for an American doctor confronted with a Spanish-speaking patient?

My publicly provided insurance policy pays for half of my medical costs.  So in case anyone wants to know the “real” cost of these treatments so far, double the amounts.  Still shockingly cheap for an American who spent half of the last decade uninsured.

My only complaint would be that my medical records aren’t fully portable and transferable.  My X-rays at the ER should have been available to my GP and surgeon.  Then I wouldn’t have had to irradiate my middle finger several times, nor would I have had to explain the injury to each individual doctor.  Whatever.  At least with Korea’s system I have a first-world complaint instead of third-world options.

-Daniel Daugherty

Some Weekend Links

Thought I’d share a few links I found while checking my “Korea” news feed this morning.

The Waygook Effect posted a “Top” 10 list of the worst English dialogue videos used in Korean public schools.  Believe it or not, they get weirder than this one:

Barack Obama continues to wax hopeful about Korean education standards.  He recently praised Korean students‘ math and science achievements.

Quoth the prez:

In South Korea, teachers are known as nation builders. I think it’s time we treated our teachers with the same level of respect right here in the United States of America.

No one who’s ever set foot in a hagwon would say that.

As for their apparent superiority at science?  Whatever.  Americans might be too stupid to understand evolution, but Koreans still believe in fan death.

-Daniel Daugherty

Fewer Dead Babies: Reasons to Consider Korea

A screenshot of Ifitweremyhome.com

While on a hiking trip yesterday, I explained to an older Korean man that his country would be a paradise to Americans who are financially strapped or environmentally conscious.  Since living in Europe and the UK, I’ve maintained that trading the car-centric American lifestyle for subways, buses and bicycles is the fastest way to simultaneously reduce one’s daily expenditures and one’s carbon footprint.

Today I found this website during my daily waste of time and it basically confirmed my outlook.  Although it’s a rough overview, it hits on most of my major points of comparison when talking about quality of life outside the US.

The only real downside it lists about life in Korea is the insane number of hours most people work (not me, though!).  Also, personal experience has shown that Koreans are at least as car crazy as Brits or Americans, only economic and infrastructural realities prevent the middle class from having four per household, like my own family at the peak of our suburban middle-class existence.

The highlights for Americans considering relocation:

• 55.91% more chance at being employed
• spend 78.17% less money on health care
• use 36.58% less electricity
• consume 28.85% less oil
• have 30.94% less chance of dying in infancy

In case you want to question the source, ifitweremyhome.com gets its figures from the CIA World Factbook.  As such it fails to mention qualitative things like “Paying less for the world’s fastest Internet connections,” and “Stress caused by getting a haircut.”

I can’t disagree with the overall picture the above numbers have created.  To live as materially well as I currently do in Korea, I’d need to make at least another $10,000 a year in the US.

Now if only tacos and dark beer would catch on with the locals, I could die happily on foreign soil.

-Daniel Daugherty