Health Care Costs in America and the Perils of Travel Health Insurance

For a number of reasons, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what health care costs in America, so we called a few hospitals and asked what treatment for the following conditions cost patients.  We discovered:

• A recent 2-night hospital visit for a dehydrated patient with Type 1 Diabetes cost over $10,000.
• A recent emergency room visit for a 10-year-old child with a broken arm cost her parents nearly $1,000.
• The care and treatment for a 50-year-old stroke patient could reach as high as $150,000.

Health conditions such as a stroke, a broken arm, even a heart attack cannot be predicted, and these conditions could occur while you are traveling just as much as they could while you go about your daily life at home. Pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or hypertension, while known risk factors, still cause health surprises when you’re traveling. For visitors to the U.S., it’s crucial to have adequate travel health insurance, and for U.S. citizens traveling abroad (where your health coverage does not extend), it’s also crucial to have adequate travel health insurance – or risk having to pay those high costs all on your own.

Why Pre-existing Conditions are a Peril of Travel Health Insurance

Many travelers think the simple purchase of travel health insurance is enough, but for many, a pre-existing medical condition is the reason their travel health insurance claim is denied. Sadly, this is a source of anger and frustration as demonstrated by the comments on this site.

It’s important for travelers to understand how travel insurance defines a pre-existing medical condition, which is:

any injury, illness, disease or other medical condition that occurs prior to the travel plan’s effective date and for which you had symptoms and sought diagnosis, medical treatment, and/or new prescription medications or a change in your current prescription.

That means if you are being treated for anything – any medical condition at all – and that condition is not controlled by your current medication, it’s a pre-existing condition. For more information, read carefully about the look-back period, what it means to be medically stable, and a qualification chart for pre-existing medical conditions.

Travelers with Pre-existing Conditions can still get Adequate Travel Health Insurance

If you have been treated for any injury, illness, or disease during the travel plan’s look-back period, you must assume that it will be defined as a pre-existing medical condition. If you’re not sure, call the travel plan’s assistance services number during the free review period and ask.

To get a travel plan with coverage for pre-existing medical conditions:

1. You’ll need to purchase a plan that offers the specific exclusion waiver because travel insurance automatically excludes coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.
2. You must purchase your plan within a certain number of days from the initial trip deposit. Typically, this is 14-21 days but the restriction varies per plan.
3. You must be medically stable when you purchase the plan, and if you have to make a claim, the travel insurance provider will examine your health records for the look-back period.

Let’s look at an example

Using the travel insurance comparison engine, we plugged in the following trip details:

• Two Colorado residents, ages 50 and 53
• Traveling to Hawaii for 7 days in December

We filtered the plans that appeared for those with a pre-existing medical condition waiver. The following demonstrates how much a plan would cost and provide a brief review of the plan’s coverage features:

Plan	Brief review of features	Cost
Travel Guard Gold plan	$25,000 primary medical per person Pre-existing condition waiver included $500,000 medical evacuation (per person) $750 per person/$150 daily for Travel delays	$51.00 (for two people)
Travel Insured Trip Protector Lite plan	$15,000 secondary medical per person Pre-existing condition waiver included $100,000 medical evacuation (per person) $500 per person/$100 daily for Travel delays	$52.00 (for two people)
Seven Corners RoundTrip plan	$75,000 secondary medical per person Pre-existing condition waiver included $350,000 medical evacuation (per person) $500 per person/$150 daily for Travel delays	$55.00 (for two people)

As you can see, spending just a little more cash and a little more time to choose a travel health plan with the coverage you need can provide a lot of health care coverage for a very reasonable price. These travelers can also use their own health insurance plan and cover the out-of-network costs with their travel health plan coverage.