Photo by filtran

Patrick (not his real name) suffered some discomfort late at night. As the normal clinics were already closed, he went by himself to a private hospital to seek consultation.

While waiting for the test results, Patrick collapsed and went into a coma. His condition worsened and he ended up having multiple organ failure. Four specialists (including one anaesthetist) had to be put on standby to stabilize his condition. Patrick also had to be connected to a life support machine in ICU just to keep him alive.

medical-insuranceEven though Patrick was fairly well off, this unexpected incident had lead to a financial disaster for his family due to a number of factors:

1) Patrick only had a private shield plan that covered him only up to A ward in a government hospital, so he can only claim 65% of the private hospital bill from his insurance. The original bill is a whopping $12,000 a day so the uninsured portion works out to be about $4200 a day. There is also an annual limit of $250,000 for his current insurance plan. Transferring him to a government hospital is out of the question due to his condition. Read more…