Seoul Visit to the Doctor

I realised that I am one customer that travel insurance can never profit from. Looking back at all my previous holidays, I have always managed to make claims one way or another.

My claims used to be mostly damaged luggages but on recent trips I am beginning to make medical claims either for myself or my family members.

Falling sick while having a holiday overseas is no joke especially after my horrible experience in Tibet. I am fighting a daily battle with flu due to insufficient sleep from the overnight flight and we have sort of reached a stalemate situation where it failed to force me to remain bedridden but I was unable to recover fully from the sick bug.

Since I have already purchased my travel insurance. I was determined to see the doc today to get medications and finally recover before I embark on my Shanghai portion of the holiday.

Raymond brought me to his family doc at International Clinic Seoul at Hannam building, Hannam-dong which is within walking distance from his place.

Raymond had to go back to his apartments to get some stuff done so he left first. The wait was pretty quick and before I knew it I was with the doc. He wanted me to go for an influenza swab test to affirm viral infection.

The swab test was horrible. Since young, I never like having any foreign objects sticking into my throat. For the swap to work, a long metal piece of apparatus have be placed deep into my throat to get a sample from the sore throat area. After a bit of a struggle, the nurse finally got what she needs and I was to be a good boy and wait patiently for the results for 15 – 20 mins.

I was called back into the doc office for the result and yes, there was viral infection in my throat. He prescribed medication, asked me to drink lots of water and directed me to the payment counter.

I was utterly horrified by the bill! It caused 30,000 won for the consultation and an additional 30,000 won for the viral swab! That’s a whopping total of SGD$70!

What’s worse is that I do not get to collect my medications from the clinic direct. The kind receptionist gave me a map to 3 of the closest approved pharmacies.

Arghh…if one was in a really bad shape they might not even be able to make it to the pharmacies. I wonder why they do not want to directly provide medication when that is a good source of profit margin for the clinic.

Anyway the medications cost another 18,000 won which round up my entire visit to the doc to SGD$98! Thanks god I had my insurance coverage!

The pharmacy was really thoughtful. Pills were nicely separated based on consumption period. So at any one time, I will just tear open the sachet for the particular period and make sure that I take all the pills contained in it!