Chamber rides and Travel Insurance

[farsidefan1]

Having coverage and getting care may be 2 different things when traveling abroad. I have always carried the top dive assure plan which has only been used once but I am forever gratefull. I also have a very good company insurance where I work (I chose it, I do employee benefits for a number of companies, my own included). When I ended up in the chamber in Coz a while ago the Dr. was familiar with Dive assure and he assured the folks at the hospital that my expenses would be picked up. I had to stay in the hospital for the day between chamber rides but inspite of my doctors word in my favor (he obviously has a lot of experience with DAN and diveassure working whre he does in Cozumel) the hospital folks absolutely insisted on cash. The hospital is separate form the attached chamber. It didn't cost much but I realized that in some places you might run into a little Stalinesh character who is ignorant of insurance or just wants to cause grief to the foreigner. The major part of the expense (several thousand dollars vs about $150. for the hospital) was just billed to Dive assure. Interestingly about a month after I got home I got a check from my insurance company for $7,000.+ to reimburse me for what Dive assure had already paid. I returned the check but it occured to me had I not had dive assure I might have needed to come up with a ton of money out of pocket then waited for a month to get reimbursed by my home coverage. You can run into different degrees of insurance sophistication in a lot of the places we dive. I would expect nearly all the chamber operators know DAN and Diveassure but the hospitals? No gurantees.

[DandyDon]

Interestingly about a month after I got home I got a check from my insurance company for $7,000.+ to reimburse me for what Dive assure had already paid.

Interesting. I would have thought that your company insurance would have recognized Dive Assure as primary and only paid what they didn't?

With DAN and your company insurance, I think they'd just split it.

[Davemohio]

I try to keep my life simple. I have the extra DAN insurance.

Not familiar with the Canadian Insurance.

I took some training at a chamber outside the US. At the time the cost was $400 an hour for a minimum of 4 hours..for a chamber ride.

I am fortunate to have good health insurance. But if I am outside the US, and need a chamber, the last thing I want to have to deal with is an insurance issue.

Hence, the DAN insurance.

[farsidefan1]

Nope, and even worse they didn't say thanks when I returned the entire amount They did not subrogate, I suspect it due to how it was billed by the folks in Coz but since my expenses were covered I didn't want to get into a battle for an insurance company that might have screwed up my life wanting more info. I get irritated enough when I have to repeat my address, phone number etc every time I see the doc, even if it was the month before, or explain that my cold was NOT caused by a work accident or a car crash.

[DandyDon]

Nope, and even worse they didn't say thanks when I returned the entire amount They did not subrogate, I suspect it due to how it was billed by the folks in Coz but since my expenses were covered I didn't want to get into a battle for an insurance company that might have screwed up my life wanting more info. I get irritated enough when I have to repeat my address, phone number etc every time I see the doc, even if it was the month before, or explain that my cold was NOT caused by a work accident or a car crash.

Well, I don't know Utah's insurance laws and I am rusty on ours, but it might have been that your medical insurance is group, your Dive Assure is private, so maybe they both were supposed to pay to the full extent of respective coversages. Maybe you should have kept it? You could ask your medical insurance claims for a clarification, or - if you're happy, fine.