I thought I would share this experience since I’ve heard over and over how expensive Japanese healthcare is for foreigners. Long story short: my wife has a long-standing condition that can cause brain swelling and then seizures. If it happens, she need to be tested with steroids to reduce the swelling. Since this is a preexisting condition, it would not be covered by travel insurance.
Well, she had a small seizure in Hiroshima so we went to the ER. I think we were there for about two hours, but neurology would not prescribe steroids for her since her seizure was over before we arrived. We declined labs or imaging. The total cost to is for the evaluation was 5900 yen, or about $45.
It was frustrating not getting the care she needed, and we’ve increased her standing dose of antiseizure meds until we get home, but it was much cheaper than I expected.
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>I’ve heard over and over how expensive Japanese healthcare is for foreigners.
It’s absolutely inexpensive, those people have little idea of the costs of actual medical care in Japan. Before I moved to Japan, I was visiting and needed an x-ray, total cost was something like 4000 yen. I could not even visit a doctor in the US for less than that, let alone get an x-ray. And all that was with zero insurance in Japan.
Of course. It’s expensive my Japanese standards, but certainly not by American ones.
Before I moved to Japan appendix out. Ambulance ride seeing multiple doctors, blood work and cyc scan $1500.
Same Toshiba CT scan at ucla medical billed to my insurance over $1500 usd
Thank you for posting this!
Proof that healthcare does not need to be a billion dollar capitalist monster.
In Amami Oshima, I cut my foot on a reef and needed 7 stitches. That, along with 2 prescriptions from the hospital cost me about $110 USD. Oh, and I even forgot my int’l insurance card. I could not believe how cheap it was.
Your post has so much misinformation. Health care in Japan is not expensive for foreigners. If you decline lab work they can’t see her overall inflammation without a blood test. How/why would they prescribe medication without knowing if it’s needed?
Out of curiosity, did you have any issues with language barrier, or are you fluent with Japanese? Or was using an interpretator an option? Did they accept cash only or is credit card an option? $50 basic ER consultation sounds very reasonable.
Visits are not the expensive part, it’s everything else.
I see a doctor here in Japan on a monthly basis. My office visit is usually about ¥5000.
If I get any lab work done, that’s between ¥30000-60000.
My medication cost between ¥400000-500000.
Everything is paid out of pocket at the time of visit. Likely had you done labs and gotten medication, you would have paid a few thousand dollars (assuming your medication is expensive).
So yeah, the visit itself is cheap. Nothing else is.
I recently had to get emergency eye care in japan. Two visits and medical eye drops all for around 4500 yen! I have travel insurance which might cover but tbh I haven’t bothered to try because it was so cheap
A random thing I know about! When I broke my wrist and my knee on vacation a couple of years ago, it was around ¥140,000 for X-rays, evaluation, CT scans, a crutch, terrible pain medication, a CD-rom of the stuff they did and braces for both injuries. A translator (whose first language was Italian) followed me around and translated for me where necessary. It took I think all of 2 hrs also.
I am from the US, so my only notes on the experience for Japan are:
1) please don’t attempt set broken limbs without any pain or numbing medication (lidocaine, say)
2) please get pain medication that isn’t baby aspirin (though if the trade off is an opioid epidemic, maybe the baby aspirin is…)
The only thing I didn’t do was take an ambulance, I took a taxi both ways.
We just got back from Japan and I was thinking about making a post about our trip. But we too had to visit the ER, my wife got tonsillitis while we were there and was in a lot of pain.
A trip to the ER for consultation and a prescription for antibiotics was about $600. A little more than I was expecting after what I read here, but cheaper than it would be in America for sure especially without insurance.
Just a useful FYI: A lot of insurance providers will provide pre-existing condition coverage (costs a little extra, but not crazy) if your condition hasn’t changed or hasn’t had a flare up in 90 days.
I went to a Japanese hospital on my trip a few weeks ago for a sore that got infected. Cost me about $350 for the exam, antibiotic ointment, and a fresh bandage. Not the cheapest but certainly could have been worse.