Visiting San Paulo? Visit the ATM first!

[Som San Hospital]

San Paulo Hospital bill dispute :

My father-in-law wasn't feeling well (dizzy & nausea) and we brought him to the San Paulo Hospital
to have it checked. Upon arrival, (confirming former posts) he was unnecassarily wheeled into the
Emergency Room for a 10 min examination. An x-ray of his stomach was made, he was put in a room
on the 3rd floor, nurse applied an intra-vein (salt-solution)and a doctor visited shortly after,
checking with a stetoscope and asking him if he had any pain in his stomach, which my father-in-law
answered with a clear "no". Since a little blood has come up with his frequent vomitting, the docter
suggested to do a endo-scopy (camera lowered into the stomach) to check if there's anything inside.
After agreeing on the price, totalling approximately 13,000 Baht (incl. 1 night stay), we agreed to
this and clarified that any additional costs, due to the outcome of the scopy, should first be consulted
with us, as the insurance would't cover more then 15,000 Baht and we had to pay all costs in advance,
before we can admit them to the insurance.

Shortly after the scopy, my wife called for the results and luckily nothing was wrong, mearly the "old man"
not feeling well and he would stay 1 night in the hospital to "regain his strength", so they told my wife.
Next day, before my father-in-law being discharged, we were presented with a double spiked bill
of 26,440 Baht !!!

San Paulo's explanation was that the patient needed extra care, visits from specialist, special medicines,
completely contradicting the diagnoses from the scopy from the day before. Upon futher questioning them
about the reasons, we were told that the patient had pain in the stomach, cause by stomach burn,
although I witnessed the day before, my father-in-law telling the doctor he didn't feel no pain at all.

In addition we were never consulted about the blood tests they did, to check his liver, kidneys and such,
which was, according to the director (I blieve), a German guy, "normal procedure", which in the mean time
beefed the bill another 5,000 Baht. Nursing fee (1,500 per day)
(note the difference between a day of 24 hours and the check-in / check-out dates !!!),
doctors visits (1,600 per visit) and then the "special medicine for the stomach pain
and nausea, which was clearly not needed at all...

After unclear, deceiptful explanations of San Paulo staff, we refused to pay the total bill and offered to pay a reasonable
sum of 15,000 Baht. This was not accepted and shortly after 16.00, after hours of ongoing lies from hospital staff,
we decided to put the 15,000 on the counter and walk off. Staffs tried to fysically stop my father-in-law from leaving
and threatened us with leagal follow-up of the matter. Un-impressed, we left and brought my father-in-law home.

Shortly after arriving home ourselves, we were traced down by the police that came to our house, accompanied by
the "poo-jai-baan". After the first 5 minutes of explaining the dispute, the police man himself started complaining,
telling us about a similar case that happened to his daughter in the San Paulo Hospital !!! Believe it or not...

We were advised to return to San Paulo to discuss the bill and settle it in the "thai way" by paying some
2 or 3,000 Baht more "to cool everything down". Tomorrow we will go there, but with no intention of
paying a single Baht more to these deceiving bastards... We're not affraid to go a step further in this case,
as we are not accepting this kind of behaviour from any hospital.

A patient that goes to a hospital for help, should in no case have to worry about being robbed by a hospital.
I think this is truely one of the lowest things people can do in the form of stealing.

Would like to hear from other peoples experiences with San Paulo, so I might add them to the fact that
the San Paulo Hospital is robbing patients in need and should clean up it's act or close their doors for good !!!

[midlandmike]

Be sure to go to the Bangkok Hospital Hua Hin--next time!!!!!!!!!

[Dr Mike]

It is understandable that you were annoyed that you were given a quote and then the eventual bill was higher, this really annoys patients and families. The 13,000b quote was obviously unrealistically low and this caused you feel cheated.
To get some perspective--go to Bumrungrad, Bangkok Hospital or Samitivej net site and find the cost of Gastroscopy and with assocated blood work and a 24 hour stay.

[richard]

Been through the same with SP and BKH.

A few points

1) The German Director at SP is only a PR front man. Primarily there to deal with farangs

2) BKH do not (or did not have) the same sophisticated equipment to do a proper Gastroscopy . They ferried me down to SP for mine

4) Having been caught by the 'add on' costs with both SP and BKH I always ask for an ongoing update on costs to be incurred during a visit to any hospital

Seems once they know it's likely to be an insurance job the sharks start the hike up

[heartofmidlothian]

Why do people not visit the Hua Hin Hospital? The new wing has great facilities and their private fees are very reasonable. A friend of mine has been there many times. He always gets his own private room, excellent care and a very small bill. He says he actually enjoys being there. I believe the new wing was built because the king used to live near by.

[JimmyGreaves]

Why do people not visit the Hua Hin Hospital? The new wing has great facilities and their private fees are very reasonable. A friend of mine has been there many times. He always gets his own private room, excellent care and a very small bill. He says he actually enjoys being there. I believe the new wing was built because the king used to live near by.

Agree!

[armycw4ret]

No sympathy if you do not have adequate insurance coverage if you live here or on vacation. If you do not have adequate coverage go back to your home country and stop complaining. Your bill seemed reasonable by most world standards but you obviously had to pay out of pocket because of poor planning or your father in law did not plan.

[Dannie Boy]

No sympathy if you do not have adequate insurance coverage if you live here or on vacation. If you do not have adequate coverage go back to your home country and stop complaining. Your bill seemed reasonable by most world standards but you obviously had to pay out of pocket because of poor planning or your father in law did not plan.

It's a fair point to raise the subject of insurance although some people decide to self-insure, that's a risk, but if they have taken a conscious decison then they take the risk knowingly. However the OP is saying that they had "agreed" a fee of 13000 baht but on checkout the fee had doubled, which does smack of malpractice - if urgent medication or treatment was necessary, it had apparently been agreed that contact would be made first which clearly never happened.

[Som San Hospital]

No sympathy if you do not have adequate insurance coverage if you live here or on vacation. If you do not have adequate coverage go back to your home country and stop complaining. Your bill seemed reasonable by most world standards but you obviously had to pay out of pocket because of poor planning or your father in law did not plan.

If you might have taken the time to read, you could have noticed the patient (insured) is my father-in-law.
I'm covered by BUPA my friend. In any case, a contact agreement and cost estimate to be doubled the next day has nothing
to do with insurance coverage, but all with robbing you of your money, insurance money or yours...

I (sadly) do have experience with Gastroscopy myself (Petcharat) for the all-in price of 8,000 Baht (2009).
San Paulo charged 7,500 Baht, but "forgot" to mention an additional 4,500 Baht for "special medicine" and doctors fee,
which I recall was mearly a small cup to drink to numb the throat for the camera insertion.

The bloodwork was explained by the German PR man of SP as "standard procedure", and if this would be the case,
I wonder why it was not in the agreed cost estimate. I can't argue to much about the necessity of the bloodwork,
as I am not a doctor, but I can argue the fact that this should and could have been made clear to us on the day
we agreed on the cost estimate.

To this day, the medicine for nausea and stomach pain have proofed to be unnecessary, as my father-in-law
is doing just fine without them and never complained about stomach pain. I might add that the "stomach burn",
they claimed my father-in-law was suffering from, I experienced multiple times and surely the man was not
suffering from this. Here we have facts that proof SP is "making up stories" to justify the bill.

Today we will meet at SP with the doctor who will explain the costs to us. I will report back about the outcome.

Last but not least ;

My brother once was there with a broken leg, but had to continue to Petcharat, as SP did not have a
"bone doctor" at that time (roughly 18:00 on a weekday).

I was there with a double snapped collarbone, again no "bone doctor" (as they like to call it). They did make
an X-ray, but the (apprentice) doctor told me there was nothing wrong. Pointing out the bone, clearly out of place,
did not convince this person, and had to continue to Petcharat aswell, where they discover the double fracture.

My father usually made his yearly "proof of life" paper at SP (pension purposes) for 300 Baht, but last year
they changed the price to 900 Baht... That is a 300 % increase without any apparent reason...

I know, I shouldn't have gone to SP, but didn't want my father-in-law to wait in line too long at the Hua Hin Hospital.
Now I've heard the HH Hospital has a 24 hour clinic, and if you don't want to wait in line, you can go there and
pay a 200 or 300 Baht extra for the quicker service.
For the more serious cases I definately recommend the BK Hospital, but must say, before this hospital opened
in Hua Hin, I went to Petcharat (twice). This is quite a good hospital. Capable professionals, straight forward in the costs
(which are not high), sometimes lacking state of the art equipment in the OT, but still capable to explain the
procedure and execute perfectly, or willing to transport you to bkk to (I believe) a sister hospital.