Medical Tourism - Ressources

Life Hacking
#1

Dear all,

I recently decided to remove a few moles on my body that are bothering me. They are very unlikely to be melanomas thus removing them is considered by insurances as purely cosmetic and not reimbursed.

The operation is under local anesthesia and rather straight forward. The risks of complications and follow-up are limited. Given the nature of the intervention, I would like to shop around for prices and, if the cost difference with Switzerland is large enough, get it done in a European city. This is medical tourism, I would use the money I spared on the operation to visit the city.

My question is, how would you go about searching for medical services that do what I’m looking for and get to know their prices. Do you have any resource in mind that could be useful such as websites with prices comparison and patient testimony?

I have never done medical tourism so any advice is welcome.

Thanks for your help.

#2

How many are you talking about ?

#3

I don’t know what the excision itself costs, but mention to the doctor that you don’t want them to be histologically examined, otherwise they get sent to a laboratory and that wii cost around 70 chf per mole and if they decide that a melanoma might be a slight possibility it will be another 77 CHF per mole where this is looked at.

#4

@yakari Three, on my back.

@Erma Yes, I will. I went to a dermatologist a couple of years ago the check them out. They considered them non-risky. They didn’t grow or change aspect since that day so it wouldn’t be worth sending them to a lab. From the few things that I read about mole removal in Switzerland the cost for lab analysis is well over 77CHF. Where did you get those figures from? Maybe mine are wrong tho.

#5

If a dermatologist looked at it and was not worried, you do not need to send them to the lab. Removal from the back itself is easy, general practitioner skill level. So if you have a gp doing it, it will cost you a few hundreds.

#6

My daily work. It is per mole so if there are lots prices will be very high.

1 Like
#7

@Erma hanks for sharing then. See this is exactly why I made this topic. I am unable to find a reliable rough estimation of the costs of such trivial intervention in my own country. I’m even more lost when it comes to shopping for prices in European countries.

Like I mentioned, any resources are welcome.

@yakari I was not thinking of saving thousands of CHF by doing it elsewhere, but even reducing the cost by 100-200 CHF is sufficient to pay for the flight and several hotel nights in a nice European city like Prague or Madrid.

#8

That’s due to tarmed and the different tax points doctors can use. It depends what specialty they have and if they are a med. Pract or a Dr. Med.

You may call the doctor office for an estimate, but it might not be completely accurate.

#9

Bangkok has a lot of very good hospitals for medical tourists

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