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    Posted September 23, 2008 by
    HugoGuzman
     
    |
    Location
    Guatemala, Guatemala
    Assignment
    Assignment
    This iReport is part of an assignment:
    Your 'Aha' weight-loss moments

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    Gastric Bypass: Travel to Guatemala or Loose my home?

    By HugoGuzman  |  Posted September 23, 2008  |  Guatemala, Guatemala
     
    Mrs. Margaret Mckenzie, a nurse from Grass Valley, California, made a trip to Guatemala. She contacted a company named, Angels Abroad ( http://www.angelsabroad.com/ ), and through them, contacted Dr. Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo, a bariatric surgeon trained in the US. She had an open gastric bypass on September 6th 2008, at Las Americas Hospital in Guatemala city. What is interesting about this story is that, Mrs. Mckenzie has a health insurance, and they can cover a gastric bypass. The problem is that she didn't had enough money to pay a co-payment and deductible. Co-payment was US $24,000. It was cheaper to pay an air ticket to go to Guatemala, plus, ground transportation, cell phone, concierge service, meals, hotel, all medical expenses including 4 nights at a 5-star hospital, nurse service, a tour to a tourist attraction and she paid for her companion expenses. All these was less expensive than using her own health insurance. She saved US $10,000. Due to her weight loss, Mrs. Mckenzie is going to be able to have a better life. With tears in her eyes, she told that if she had surgery in the US, she probably had to mortgage, for second time, her house. This is a reality americans are considering, to travel abroad to have invasive surgeries, not just cosmetic. Though it is a hard decision to travel to a called "third world country", and find physicians trained in the US, using state of the art technology, it is becoming necessary, for americans to survive and not loose all of their money in the process.

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