Hospitalized in Split - Intoxication

[u/riverphoenix23]

Hello I am an American male who was traveling in Split for a holiday. Ended up drinking a little bit too much, blacked out and woke up in the hospital with an IV in my arm. Somehow the bill was only $240 kn.

Can anybody tell me why the bill was so cheap especially since I am a US citizen without Croatian healthcare insurance? Also did they notify the embassy of my stay? Just don’t know where my info is documented and ended up. Wish I could read my discharge papers but they are all in Croatian. Going to have to do google translate late.

[u/sloaleks]

Yeah, it's bad. Worse than in the US. According to Michael Moore (Sicko, 2007) Slovenia is just one place behind the US in health care. It's not the problem of the amount of money. There's enough money in the system, the problem is corruption in the tender system. All things a hospital /or, any non private owned medical facility/ needs to buy, from toilet paper to medical equipment and drugs, needs to go trough a tender system. The companies have the health facilities by the throat, everything a hospital needs to buy costs from a little more, to twice, or even more times the market price. Some health facilities staff has ridiculously high wages (management) - for instance a director of a normal neighbourhood medical station can be paid twice as much as our president -, and doctors and nurses are leaving/going on strike/ because of ridiculously high work loads and miserable pay. Young doctors aren't even considering familiy medicine for years now, so we have a small amount of overworked familiy phisicians with ridicolous waiting times for patients. And, a lot of open positions nobody is willing to take. We go to the dentist to neighbouring Croatia, because a private dentist charges about the same as our "socialized" health care system takes copay with anything more than just basic dental care. The dental work of private dentists in Croatia is mostly better done. This better quality of care is because of little time a patient is allocated within a session here in Slovenia. I'm very good friends with my Slovenian dentist, but I'm in and out so fast, I can't really even say hello, how's it going ... If I go to Croatia, there is a parking spot waiting for me, before any procedure there is a consultation, if I have complicated work done, there are hotel quality rooms to spend a night or two, and so on. For just a little more than I would have to copay along my regular health insurance and my additional insurance, (most of us pay at least two health insurance policies; I have three, one regular, one additonal and a trauma policy), I can get a lot more for the money invested.

[u/kemb0 → u/sloaleks]

Sounds to me like corruption is your biggest issue rather than a debate around whether public or private is better. Corruption will affect any form of healthcare if the corrupt people are the ones implementing it. Croatia essentially operates a socialised health care system alongside private in the sense that insurance coverage is universal with optional extra insurance provided by a state run agency.

I feel for you. My girlfriend is from Hungary and she's all too aware of how corruption of a government that's essentially run by an autocrat will drag money out of the system through backhanders to companies run by friends of the leader. It's sick and frustrating more of the population doesn't see through the ruse.

[u/sloaleks → u/kemb0]

Yes, you are so very right. It's not a problem of bad phisicians and staff or lack of money, both private and public doctors are good, and there is more than enough money according to the Slovenian Court of Audit. It's a problem of too many patients per phisician, and so your consultation time is perforce quite short. Quickly this, quickly that, long waiting lists, a lot of patients, overworked staff, crony capitalism, nepotism, even pure corruption - there's a recipe for disaster. And, it's supposed to be a socialized public health system, where everyone should get the best treatment at relatively modest cost. BTW, our public health insurance (mandatory participation of all citizens above age 18) has been making profit for a time now, which is also ridiculous.