How good are the medical centers, hospitals and health clinics in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc, and how close are they?
John Venator - Casa de los Venados
In the Yucatan Peninsula in Cancun, you will find world-class medical facilities. My mother broke her shoulder a few years ago and we took her to Hospiten, which is a Spanish private hospital. We just used the emergency admitting room. There were phones on the wall, which are direct lines to Blue Cross Blue Shield and Mutual of Omaha. My mother had an English-speaking board-certified orthopedic surgeon. Her anesthesiologist was also board-certified....
In the Yucatan Peninsula in Cancun, you will find world-class medical facilities. My mother broke her shoulder a few years ago and we took her to Hospiten, which is a Spanish private hospital. We just used the emergency admitting room. There were phones on the wall, which are direct lines to Blue Cross Blue Shield and Mutual of Omaha. My mother had an English-speaking board-certified orthopedic surgeon. Her anesthesiologist was also board-certified. However, they would charge more towards US prices. Hospiten built another hospital in Playa Del Carmen and they even have a hyperbaric chamber. The bulk of their clientele tends to be very wealthy Mexicans or tourists. Everybody from admissions, emergencies, staff, and doctors are all board-certified and they speak English. Hospiten is a high end hospital here in Mexico. My parents are both retired and Medicare doesn’t pay here in Mexico. My parents’ Medicare supplement did pay. We were out by probably a third of what the total bill was and the rest was paid for by their US insurance.
Health care in Mexico, in general, is less expensive. Merida, Mexico is one of the medical capitals of Mexico. There are five medical schools with teaching hospitals in Merida. They also do medical tourism there as well. It is literally world-class and much less expensive than it is in the US.
There are articles in the Yucatan Today, which is an English newsletter published in Merida, that every once in a while gives a case history of a person’s condition. A woman from Baltimore had to have a certain kind of surgery and for whatever reason, she didn’t have insurance in the US and it was going to cost US $37,000 there. She came down here to Mexico and had the surgery done for $6,000 and she was very pleased with the results.
Here in Valladolid (which is 100 miles to Cancun and 100 miles to Merida), there is a new regional social security hospital that was built a couple of years ago and because of that it is now starting to attract some better doctors. They are starting to also put more infrastructure into the hospital that they need such as operating suites. The joke when they first bought it here and started to renovate was that if you needed something important like medical services, you have to have somebody put you in a car and drive as fast as you could to Merida. You don’t necessarily have to do that now.
In town in Valladolid, we have a general physician, who is English-speaking. He is a board-certified orthopedic traumatist. In a town of 8,000 people you still don’t necessarily make a living just setting broken bones, so he also does general practice on the side. We became friends. I sort of have him on retainer. I have his cellphone, office, and home phone numbers. I also have his wife’s cellphone number. His wife is also a general practitioner. Any time we need him, he literally comes to my house.
Most clinic visits is 400 Mexican pesos (about US $23). When my physician comes to my house, I give him 500 pesos and if he says, “Oh no, that is not necessary.” I say, “No. I want to give you this much.” We feel very blessed in terms of medical services. I think the only worry that we have would be if we would have a major heart attack or a stroke. In that case, we would look at is being stabilized here and then quickly transferred by ambulance to Merida. We also pay for Med Jet, which I think many expats do in various countries. Using this service, if you are hospitalized and there is a certain criteria met, in terms of number of days that you were hospitalized, we could be literally “med jeted” back to the US of someplace else. We have that additional security or a safety that we built for ourselves. The downside is when you hit 80 years old, you can no longer purchase the service.
As an example, my wife had an open MRI at Star Medica Hospital, which is a major teaching hospital in Merida. When the doctor said that he wanted to have that procedure done, I started thinking about two round trip tickets to Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital, and a couple of nights in a hotel because I was thinking it was expensive. I asked the doctor, “Would you write the prescription for that so when we go back to the US, we could have it done?” He says, “Why would you do that?” And I said, “Well, because MRIs are expensive.” He said, “Not here in Mexico.” I asked him how much a MRI would cost and he said, “You could go down to the first floor right now.” That would be the only wait, whereas in Chicago, you have to schedule this kind of procedure days or weeks in advance. My wife also had a MRI at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago a couple of years ago and it cost us $2,800, but here in Mexico, we only paid less than $300.
So from time to time when we need to have some small procedures done, we visit the clinic or get some prescription medicine, it’s minor because medical services are cheaper here. Doctors don’t earn anywhere near the kind of money they do in the US. 400 pesos (US $25) is what we pay to go see a doctor at the clinic hospital. My physician actually prefers to come to the house. When I say I’ll come to his office, he says, “Oh no, you don’t have to come to the office. I’ll come to your house today at 2 PM.”
(Hospiten in the Maya Riviera, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted September 18, 2015
Doug Willey - Doug Willey, Independent Real Estate Consultant
The main medical area in the Yucatan Peninsula is in Merida. Some of the top doctors in the world are in Merida. Most of the doctors have been trained either in Europe or in the US, so they’re very well trained. The have very nice, modern hospitals. One of the nicest hospitals that expats like to go to in Merida is called Star Medica, where they have all the modern facilities, machinery and everything. They provide top quality medical care here. And the prices of having a...The main medical area in the Yucatan Peninsula is in Merida. Some of the top doctors in the world are in Merida. Most of the doctors have been trained either in Europe or in the US, so they’re very well trained. The have very nice, modern hospitals. One of the nicest hospitals that expats like to go to in Merida is called Star Medica, where they have all the modern facilities, machinery and everything. They provide top quality medical care here. And the prices of having a procedure done are approximately half of what you would pay in the US, for equal to or better quality than any place in the US. Last year on December 14, I had taken my wife to Playa del Carmen (which is located in the state of Quintana Roo in the Yucatan Peninsula) for her birthday and I walked into some sliding glass doors and severed some arteries in my left leg. They called an ambulance and rushed me to the hospital in Playa del Carmen but they could not help me because they didn’t have an arterial surgeon. They transferred me to Cancun (also on the Yucatan Peninsula in the state of Quintana Roo) and when I got to Cancun, they got me to the operating room because they said it was very urgent; if I didn’t have something done immediately, I was either going to bleed to death or lose my leg. But when they got me to the operating room, they informed me that the arterial surgeon was on Christmas holiday and not available so they said we had to drive you to Merida, where they did have an arterial surgeon. So they took me on a five-hour ambulance ride to Merida.
They had notified my insurance agent, so even though it was 2:00 in the morning when I arrived in Merida, she was at the hospital with me. She did all the paperwork because I’m not a 100% fluent Spanish speaker, and especially with medical terms, I would have been completely lost. My insurance agent had already contacted the surgeon, who was already dressed and in the waiting room waiting for me to take me in immediately. While they were waiting for me, they had done all the paperwork all got everything all sorted out. It turned out they ended up not only saving my leg, but also saving my life.
Everything worked out very well. The arterial surgeon came to visit me probably two times a day while I was recovering in the hospital. He also spoke English so we communicated. He could tell me what my status was and I could ask him any questions that I needed to ask It was definitely a great experience.
I spent four days in the hospital. Once I was released, the doctor said that after doing physical therapy, I would probably be able to start using my leg normally again. At that time, I was living in Mahahual, in the state of Quintana Roo. After the surgery, I went back to Mahahual, put the house up for sale and I moved back to the state of Yucatan, so I could be closer to the medical facilities in Merida. I was lucky to have survived my accident but my wife and I thought, “We’re not 30 year olds anymore.”
I’m 62 and she’s almost 60, so we’re just uncomfortable not having very good medical care close by. Where I live now, on the beaches in the state of Yucatan, I could be in Merida in less than an hour. If I have a medical emergency, I would be very comfortable being next to topnotch quality medical care.
(Hospitales Star Medica, pictured.)
Posted December 12, 2015
Thomas Lloyd - Top Mexico Real Estate
I have two kids and I have been in Mexico for 20 years. For 10 years, I lived in Mexico City, which is where I got married. Then we moved to the coast here in Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo. My twins who were born here in Cancun at hospital here called Hospiten, which is a European administered hospital. In the last 5 years Hospiten opened another hospital in Playa del Carmen (located in the Riviera Maya) and they are also looking down in the other areas of the Riviera Maya like in...I have two kids and I have been in Mexico for 20 years. For 10 years, I lived in Mexico City, which is where I got married. Then we moved to the coast here in Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo. My twins who were born here in Cancun at hospital here called Hospiten, which is a European administered hospital. In the last 5 years Hospiten opened another hospital in Playa del Carmen (located in the Riviera Maya) and they are also looking down in the other areas of the Riviera Maya like in Tulum, maybe in the next 5 or 6 years.My experience with the hospitals in the Yucatan Peninsula has been fantastic. Not too long ago, one of our clients, from Ohio, had difficulties with her heart so she started visiting the hospital over in Cancun. I remember her telling me, “You know, in the States, whenever I have to go to the hospital, I felt like a number, but when I started coming to the hospital here in Mexico, on my second visit, the doctor received me with kisses on the cheek, he remembered my daughter and her name, and he asks about me. I felt like I was being attended to by a friend or a neighbor.” I always remember that story because that kind of hospitality is very typical here. It is part of Mexico’s culture to give extra care.
In the state of Yucatan, Merida is the hub of the Yucatan. It’s the largest and oldest city in the southern part of Mexico. It also the place in the area that has the most money and where many rich families and organizations have their headquarters. Cancun basically didn’t exist until recently. It used to be that Isla Mujeres has more of the population right there on the island than Cancun and Cancun was literally just a dock and a ferry for people to get to Isla Mujeres. Cancun really didn’t have the infrastructure or the history, or the centers or hubs. The 1970s was when the national government started to invest in the infrastructure in Cancun. As a result, the financial centers and hospital centers are more over Merida. In Merida, you will easily find four to five top-notch hospitals.
I met a gentleman from Florida, who is a realtor, who lives in Progreso, one of the beach towns around Merida. He just told me that he moved from the States because he had some type of cancer and the treatments that they were giving up in the States were against the law, but here in Merida, it was allowed. So he made the move down to Mexico to be close to Merida. He loved the water and the beach, so he decided to move to Progreso, where he is only about 25 minutes away from this very important hospital where he could get treatments for his cancer. If I remember it correctly, it was about 8 years ago when he moved to Mexico for this treatment.
There are three or four other hospitals in Cancun, but Hospiten is my personal preference and where I am confident with the quality of the doctors and the facilities that they have. Hospiten is like a hospital in the United States. I came from a smaller town in Indiana and my opinion is that the hospitals here in Cancun may be equal or even a step better than the hospitals in Indiana. Overall, the Hospiten is equivalent or probably a bit better.
Back in Mexico City, I’ve been in the hospital several times. My family on my wife’s side were very involved in the hospital. They were doctors. One of the top hospitals in Mexico is Hospital Angeles, which is on par with the hospitals in Texas. Most of the doctors here in Mexico do their training up in Texas.
(Hospital Hospiten Cancún, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted February 27, 2016
Andy James
There are excellent health facilities in Yucatan. My wife is having some medical services here in Yucatan, and I know other people who have as well. The medical facilities in Yucatan are certainly on par with the United States, Canada and the UK. The cost of health services in Yucatan are between 10 and 20% of what they would cost in the United States, Canada, or the UK, and I would have no problem recommending them to anybody. There are two medical...
There are excellent health facilities in Yucatan. My wife is having some medical services here in Yucatan, and I know other people who have as well. The medical facilities in Yucatan are certainly on par with the United States, Canada and the UK. The cost of health services in Yucatan are between 10 and 20% of what they would cost in the United States, Canada, or the UK, and I would have no problem recommending them to anybody. There are two medical centers that are large facilities in Merida with all the services you’d expect, both within 10 minutes of the center. If I had a serious issue, I would feel comfortable going to these facilities. I can’t speak for anywhere else because I’ve never seen or been to any of them.
I know of somebody who had a heart attack and received care in a private facility. His bill was US $35,000, and it was estimated that the bill for the similar thing in the United States would have had another zero on the end of it. He may have had some insurance, but here in Yucatan, they don’t change the bill depending on who’s paying, which tends to happen in other countries. The cost is the cost and they don’t care how they get paid.
(University medical facility for the La Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán in Merida, Yucatan, pictured.)
Posted January 8, 2017
Roddrigo Sidney Whalesharkdaddy - Cancun Whale Shark Tours
The best hospitals in this area are in Merida. There are many private hospitals in Cancun, as well as inexpensive Clinics.
Good Chelation is reasonably priced in Cancun along with excellent holistic care. OZONE injections, Platlet / Plasma injections at a fraction of the cost in USA.
US health insurance is not valid here. Medicare would be smart and save a lot of money if they let expats do medical here. Maybe...
The best hospitals in this area are in Merida. There are many private hospitals in Cancun, as well as inexpensive Clinics.
Good Chelation is reasonably priced in Cancun along with excellent holistic care. OZONE injections, Platlet / Plasma injections at a fraction of the cost in USA.
US health insurance is not valid here. Medicare would be smart and save a lot of money if they let expats do medical here. Maybe someday?
IMSS Social Seguro hospitals are for the poor folks, with wait times very long. Insurance is available and nowhere near as expensive as the debacle ObamaCare.
Posted March 12, 2018