About a month ago, my American friend comes up to me after practice and says, “Guess what I did yesterday? I went to the dentist!” I immediately thought, “Oh no…is he about to tell me that he has an infection in his mouth that will proceed to the rest of his body and he may die?! Is he about to give me a very painful and nightmarish experience? To scare me away from this place?” However, this adventure he had was quite the opposite.
In the US, we have private health insurance. You must only use the doctors that your insurance covers unless you want to pay an obscene amount of money. Even with the doctors you do go to; sometimes you still pay an obscene amount of money for procedures like a tooth filling, for example. Plus, you probably have to wait months to set up an appointment and the procedure is always longer than you think it should be. And, on top of everything, this is coming from someone who does not like taking drugs and believes the body can handle itself; they give you laughing gas or anesthesia automatically. There is no “drug-free,” option.
My American friend explained the entire story of his dentist experience like this: the family he is staying with has relatives in Maipu, which is where most of the bodegas/wineries are. They go often for afternoon excursions. This one particular excursion, the husband of the couple had to go to the dentist so he brought the American along. On their way there, el Yanki (that’s what the people at the club call the American…they call me “la Yanki,” “gringa,” or “flaca”) explains how back in the States his dentist told him he needed a cavity filled. Since he didn’t have time to do it back home, he was going to take advantage and see if maybe he could set up an appointment to do it here. After the husband is done with his meeting with the dentist, el Yanki explains to the dentist, in his very broken Spanish, that he wanted to make an appointment to get his cavity filled. The dentist says, “Let’s do it now!” So, el Yanki, the on-the-spot type of person he is, agrees. After the less than 20-minute long procedure, without any sort of anesthesia (apparently, the dentist only offered it to him because he knows that in the States it is standard) and apparently very little pain, he is done! Finally, when el Yanki is ready to pay, assuming he will have to pay a fortune since he is not an Argentinian citizen and the procedure was done on the spot, he is surprised to find out it only costs him a total of $20. $20?! $20?! Do you know of ANY procedure in the US that will only cost $20? This is not just the $20 co-pay, but to your insurance company as well. His TOTAL payment was $20.
I ask el Yanki, “Are you feeling okay? Any pain?” He indicates that he feels nothing, actually he feels great, no pain, and is very happy with the procedure. Like me, he does not like inflicting drugs unless needed and he was delighted when they did not force him to get anesthetized. I am liking this place more and more every day…
When I was in Peru I had to get stitches because I cut my toe open... the doctor on site gave me a tetnus shot, novacaine, and 3 stitches (in the US i probably would have received 10).... all for the remarkable cost of $0.00! Granted I was in one of the richest parts of Peru and with an AU program whose insurance would have covered it anyway... but still!
ReplyDelete