One additional point is whether Evacuation is actually pointless in these policies - the fine print says that evac must be pre-approved to be valid, in real life nobody is going to pre-approve an evac. The emergency personnel aren't going to call your insurance company for pre-approval to see if they can evacuate you, that is beyond ridiculous. They will come and evacuate you, they don't have time for any other insurance related nonsense stuff like this.
Now, repatriation to your home country is more likely an approval can be sought but even then it would depend on the emergency and if time is of the essence. I am speculating here of course... how it actually works would probably be locale specific.
Will you still have a valid "USA home address" during this time?
If so, and if Medevac is important/of interest to you, you might want to check out MedJetAssist.
This is a specialized "Medivac only" coverage to get you back *home* (in the USA for policies we are familiar with), but with a nice feature. IF one is an INpatient at a hospital (not ER or observation, etc.), then IF *YOU* want to be medevac'd to a hospital of your choice (in the USA, I think), then in general, YOU get to decide.
Note: This type of "medevac" is not a service that evacuates you off a mountain side, for example, but there are some other more specialized services from other companies. And it's not the type of medical transport for immediate emergencies (such as ambulance or helo trahsport from the site of an accident.
This is the type if one needs to be moved from one hospital to another for more specialized care... or if one WANTS to be moved to a different hospital. In this case, it would need to be medically necessary under almost all insurance coverages.
And... what the "insurer" deems "medically necessary" might NOT be what WE think is medically necessary... perhaps for a more specialized hospital, or more modern facilities, etc. "Medically necessary" doen't automatically imply "the latest and greatest and newest", etc.
The only "catch" is obvious: You must be medically stable enough to be moved, but that "move" can be with a full air ambulance with medical staffing, if that is what it takes. (If a lesser method is approrpriate, then that's what would be used.). We figure if one isn't in a condition such that it is safe enough for that level of transport, there are probably more urgent problems to deal with...
And the receiving hospital must be willing to receive you.
The important thing is there is "NO MEDICAL NECESSITY" required and NO BEANCOUNTERS get involved in the decision.
The annual fee depends upon age. Starting at age 75 (I think), one must be "approved", but the approval is reasonable (DH has been through it once). They don't reject someone (or so it seems thus far) for sort of "normal aging" issues like taking blood pressure or cholesterol meds. There are a few simple questions for the prospective client, and then a very slightly longer one for the physician. In DH's case, they didn't require any medical records and apparently they didn't ask for any additional information once they had the physician's answers to the short "questionnaire".
We had figured that might be the case. I mean, if they were going to reject anyone over the age of 75 because they took BP or cholesterol or allergy meds, for example, then why waste everyone's time, including their own, going through the process...?
[We figure that obviously, IF there is a claim, then they might ask for more information, but that could only be to make sure that the original answers were accurate... that is, not hiding a very recent heart attack or something like that...]
So you could request to be taken to "your home hospital" where your medical records and regular physicians are, or you could be taken to some sort of specialty hospital. After that, you'd need to get yourself back "home" or wherever you were going.
If you are interested, you should check if there is any restriction about how many days one can be "out of the country".
However, the coverage kicks in any time one is at least 150 miles from "home", which is why I asked about whether you'd still have a USA residential address.
We found the annual plan to be useful. IN addition to our overseas travel, it would also cover any last minute trips for business or to see friends/relatives, as long as we were >150 miles from home.
We never used MJA, but we came *very* close to calling them when I was in hospital overseas. Just as we were mumbling... "should we call MJA??", I started to improve. ("Of course!" Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
)RM
Statistics: Posted by ResearchMed — Sun Jul 21, 2024 12:31 am