How to pay for bariatric surgery

Where to have the bariatric surgery?

At the very beginning, I had no idea where to start investigating this part. It is a surgery, so it will be done in a hospital. But which one? In Spain, where I live, this is not such a common surgery as in the US, thus the common knowledge about where to have this done is somewhat limited. 

Private clinic = pay yourself

My dearest friend Google, you know it all 🙂 and again, you didn’t let me down. Unfortunately, the first results that were coming out were all for private clinics where I would have to pay for the procedure out of my pocket. Which complicates things quite a bit.

I can’t say I am poor but paying this much money is a little too much for me. 8 to 15 thousand euros – depending on the procedure, that is a lot of money. It was the very first very real blow. I may not be able to pay for it. I also tried to check through my private health insurance, but it was the same.

What was somewhat disturbing to me was the fact that I was not talking to any specialized clinics they were all general ones where they were offering many different types of procedures. Most likely they had experience with bariatric surgery, but it was taking away my trust in these people. I am honest here. If somebody will touch me, I do want to know that they are sure what they are doing.

Social Security (Seguridad Social)

After some time I realized that it might be somehow possible to go through Social Security, aka the public health insurance. I had experience with this system before and the result was amazing. Ok, this might be the way to go. Let’s investigate this a little.

Technical note: For some reason, people think especially my friends in the US, that if you live in Spain, you automatically live very healthy. Haha, it is not true. The famous Mediterranean diet? Yes, it exists, but mostly older people go by this system.

Normally you start your day with coffee and croissant or cupcake. No, this is not the best start for your day. Now I know that. Also, orange juice is a good killer and all the bread with everything and anything, is also a wonderful source of extra calories good to nothing. Yes, they eat a lot of fish veggies, and legumes, that is for sure.

I am simply not very convinced of the proportions and combinations. I am not a nutritionist, but simply putting a meal in a calorie counter app tells you the real truth behind it. I was not completely wrong.

Waiting time

It is possible to have bariatric surgery in any bigger hospital (yay), but the waiting time is about 5 years. What? Yes, you read this right. Five years? This is a complete killer. Ok, you don’t pay anything for this, which is amazing, but wait five years, I would be diabetic sooner than having this thing sorted out. So… this might be an option, but a pretty nasty one. 

You must know from your experience that if you start searching something through Google, all of a sudden your Facebook will be flooded with ads for the desired product. And this is exactly what happened to me 😀 it was a sheer coincidence. Boom! In a hospital about an hour away from me, there is a bariatric unit. Wow! Can’t be! Can I be this lucky? Let’s check this out. 

Surprising solution to my case

The hospital is semi-private (Hospital de Manises, Valencian Community, Spain), but I can go through the public system. Great! And now the best part: the waiting time is about a year. What? This sounds significantly better. It was spring 2019 (yes, the pandemic was in full swing, in Spain, with hundreds of people dying every day and I was investigating a surgery) when I started the whole process. 

The paperwork was pretty straightforward, nothing crazy complicated. To my surprise, I had my first appointment with an endocrinologist in a month. And this is when it all started. After talking to this nice lady, having blood checked, my lazy thyroid acknowledged, and having told all my dieting and Jojo effect weight loss experiences… I was borderline passing the criteria to be admitted into the program but she gave me the green light. It was one of the most important YES in my whole life. 

I felt elated. It felt the same as when I gained the scholarship to study in Canada – only one person for the whole university – and it was me. I was shining with joy. It felt as if a huge stone fell off me. Things started happening and it felt very real.

Going abroad – medical tourism

I will add here something that I was also contemplating. Only a little and only for a while. It has become very popular recently to go to Turkey to have this surgery. They call it medical tourism.

It is much cheaper, maybe half of the price, and they say they speak Spanish as well (really?, I have my doubts; we are talking about a major surgery here, so I am not quite sure if I want to deal with someone who speaks a language very different from any I am fluent in), they offer some kind of insurance (what it covers at the end of the day?) and they seem to be simply amazing. That is what all the online offers say. Lots of wonderful testimonies. You can only imagine. It looks too good to be true.

I am very skeptical about things like these. OK, I am willing to buy some Chinese products (clothes, and in moderation), but I never compromise on healthcare and food. I am endlessly grateful to live in a European Union country where the standards for both categories are pretty high – compared to the non-member states and unfortunately the US as well. Just check the label of anything you have in your pantry and you will see for yourself. Scary stuff…

Scary technicalities

I was wondering what it would be like to spend 4 hours on a plane to Istanbul, Turkey. They make only the minimal necessary health checks and blood checks, and that´s it. You go to the operational theater. Once operated, you go to a hotel, you stay for two or three days and you fly back to your country. At least this is what they say in their ads.

I am talking from my experience here, after having the procedure done. I am not sure if I would have been able to make this. The flight back must be a good hell. I was happy to spend an hour in a car, having a friend taking me home, and helping me with all my stuff. I went home the third day and I had enough to make it. I was so incredibly tired.

More questions than answers

Just thinking about going to the airport, luggage, walking for hours, and then sitting with the safety belt in my tummy (I had a nice fluffy pillow under the safety belt in the car) and then the same in my country… this is beyond me. I mean to me it would have been mission impossible.

And who would have taken the staples from my incisions? And the blood checks? And the nutritionist? And the surgeon checks? Too many questions, no answers at all… I don’t think it is possible to make it over a Zoom meeting. And what if something goes wrong and I would have to go back to the hospital immediately? It is a surgery, anything can happen, no matter what they tell you.

I gave up on this option pretty fast. What is more, I found a lot of pretty nasty experiences online (ok, I get it, people share the horrible things more often than the good ones). But still… it felt unsafe to me.

But, and I have to mention this here as well, patients from the US often fly to Mexico. I saw some comments on this in Facebook groups and it seems that the surgeons working with these patients first have a specialized clinic, approved standards, and speak English. I think it is not ideal, the flight is still there, and it might be pretty long. It somehow made me think about this option a little more positively. Still, I wouldn’t do it 🙂 

 

Have you decided yet about how and where to have the surgery? Are you still exploring the options? What do you prefer? Is it the same expensive as where I live? Or did you have it abroad? I would be really interested in Turkey/Mexico experience. Let me know. I am all ears!