Nosara Vacation Rental

by The Field Museum Library

Health Check Costa Rica’s true inception began when my baby sister developed hepatitis C from a bad blood transfusion in the late 1980′s. We rallied as a family and when she bounced back after a year I really thought that we had averted this crisis permanently. I knew she had to take some medication but in every other way things were back to normal. Little did I know that 15 years later the disease had taken a toll that required her to seek a full liver transplant. The year we spent battling this with her was a year I will never forget. This was a year that had me inside a hospital almost every single day. I sold my house and quit working so that I would have money to help and to be by her side full time. I saw from the inside exactly what was good and what was bad about our health care system. What struck me was that like in so many walks of life there was the good and the bad that needed to be accepted and sometimes shades of gray not easily interpreted.  But some iniquities were simply too harsh. What struck me and stuck with me during this experience, the observations that both affected me and often infuriated me is why I eventually formed Health Check Costa Rica.

From the stories that I heard and the people I met it in the hospital it was very clear and quite tragic that there were people dying every day because they were being turned away from quality care from lack of funds or adequate insurance. I truly thought this iniquity to be inexcusable in a country of such wealth and majesty. It screamed of injustice and seemed so random as to be akin to rolling dice. If you had good insurance or worked for the right company or had the right education then you were Ok. If not you were turned out to die. It’s that simple. It’s that harsh.

Ultimately my sister’s Hospital bills topped out at over a million dollars. In seeing those numbers and seeing the astronomical prices for certain things it occurred to me that no one could really afford this except for the top .01% of the population. So how could we even as a society afford this? Where did these prices come from? Well I translate it something like this. These are insurance companies paying these bills. Patients are not usually going line by line and challenging certain outrageous costs. No these are insurance companies approving these expenses and then meeting behind closed doors to figure out how to pass this on to the consumer and still make a buck. Hence the ridiculous prices for health insurance and ultimately health care and really why a majority of people remain uninsured. The health insurance companies have dropped the ball and the thinking is “as long as we are making our percentage, well the higher the better.”

Lastly litigation has helped skyrocket the price of care and really has forced doctors in to a no win situation. An OB GYN in Florida is required by law to pay as high as 0,000 dollars per year for medical malpractice insurance. That’s right, 200k before they can make a dollar for themselves. Who do you think ultimately pays this? You the consumer! One additional reason so many remain uninsured is this lack of long overdue tort reform and absurd compensations. Finally the tragic result I saw with my own eyes in my sister’s case was these high powered surgeons in high risk areas were forced to carry such a heavy case load to pay off these insurance costs that none were able to give their patients the care or personal attention they needed or the attention they deserved. They were forced to use lesser skilled underlings to catch complex diagnoses and symptoms and I can tell you straight up. THIS DOES NOT  WORK. The system is terribly broken.

The day my sister finally left Spaulding Rehabilitation hospital in Boston was the day I set out on my adventure to Costa Rica with my jeep Cherokee loaded for jungle survival. With all my computer equipment and clothes, my dog Seikan and I began our long dangerous drive to Costa Rica, neither of us with any Spanish just a lot of hope for a new life. Costa Rica really has much to offer and we have enjoyed living here and working and while many of things we take for granted in the United States do not exist here conversely neither do many of the bad things. I am constantly struck by the lack of sirens, and airplanes each time I hear this it is surprising to me. Infrastructure still has a long way to catch up to the US but one of the big surprises I had when I began research for Health Check several years ago was that the overall health care system was ranked higher than the United States in the world in overall quality of care, and has an incredible network of internationally accredited Hospitals, surgeons, and after care facilities that rival the care in the US. The people of Costa Rica have the second longest life spans of all countries in the world, and were ranked in a worldwide study as some of the happiest people on earth.  As I continued my studies in to this business I realized that it was possible to form a service that would allow people in the United States and Canada to seek out quality affordable health care close to home at up to an 80% discount with all of the worries of organizing details and itineraries to us.  People who could not afford health care could suddenly have access to truly quality health care less than three hours away from many major airports in the U.S. To me this was more than a business opportunity it was an opportunity to make a difference in peoples’ lives, a chance to serve and a chance to help. With this in mind please understand that if you book a procedure through Health Check Costa Rica we take very seriously you every care and comfort once you land in Costa Rica. Our research and experience in finding the right doctor, dentist or after care specialist will take the burden off of you and your family and let you prepare for your procedure with peace of mind. We will introduce you to only the best of the best in Costa Rica and give you a chance to meet and establish a relationship with the surgeons who will be performing your procedures long before you arrive. We work with only the best and most trusted tour companies, hotels, and transportation services and we can create packages for every budget.  So please let us help. Whether it is for any procedure large or small, from Hip Replacement, gastric bypass, or Plastic Surgery, from Angioplasty to In Vitro Fertilization, you owe it to yourself to choose the best care for you. Please allow health Check Costa Rica to make the introductions and present options to you. We look forward to serve you and many others.