Slovakia, Ireland - Sometimes treatment abroad seems so much cheaper than it is at home. English health tourism web site Treatment Abroad published a review of the case study made by Irish health website RevaHealth:

Zuzana is from Slovakia and lives in Ireland. Last year she decided she wanted to get braces so she asked around about how much it would cost her. She called a few Irish clinics and the price quoted was €4500. This price included all fittings and adjustments.

Using family connections at home, Zuzana found out the braces in Slovakia would cost €500 for the initial fitting, €30 per adjustment every two months and €200 to remove the braces. For a two year period of treatment with 12 adjustments this would cost Zuzana €1060 excluding any travel costs. As the dentist in question was also in her parents’ hometown she would not have any accommodation costs.

Zuzana recognised that travelling home to Slovakia for each adjustment would be expensive so she checked with a local dentist whether or not they could take care of her braces. The dentist said that they wouldn’t be happy taking care of another dentist’s work and that if they did they would still have to charge €2500 to look after all of the adjustments.

In the end Zuzana decided to undergo treatment in Slovakia and use the trips to keep in touch with her family and friends at home. When asked about what influenced her decision, price was the number one reason, but not the only one. "The main reason for me was money of course. Secondly, I felt the service I get back home is much better than in Ireland. My dentist was even kind enough to see me in the evening time when my flight was arriving late, or on weekends when that was the only time I could get a good deal on flights."

Even with flying home every two months Zuzana’s total treatment was going to be significantly cheaper than having the treatment done in Ireland. She was paying as little as €50 return for a direct flight to her home town, but then that route was cancelled meaning she would have to fly to Bratislava first and then on to her home town. She could also have gotten a train from Bratislava but it would have taken 5 hours in each direction, meaning she’d have very little time with her dentist or her family.

Then came the news that her dentist wanted her to keep the braces on longer than expected. The resulting extra travel costs had a big effect on her overall treatment cost. "If I only had to wear the braces for one year then it would have worked out much cheaper than in Ireland, but because it is taking longer in my case (2 years and 3 months so far) the additional costs for the flights and visits means it is now dearer than the price I would have paid here in Ireland."

Despite the cost overrun, Zuzana still thinks that she is getting good treatment from her dentist, "The reason it has taken longer is because my dentist didn’t wanted to remove any of my healthy teeth just to make the others straighter. There was not much space for them so she had to make changes really slowly, kind of pushing my teeth more to the front that gave the others some more space. When I asked my dentist questions about why it was taking so long she was always kind enough to explain everything and show me how it was working, so it helped me to understand more about the treatment."

Travelling abroad for treatment that requires a lot of follow up visits is always risky because travel and accommodation costs can change dramatically, and they are not under your control. Zuzana offers some advice, "My advice would be try to find a dentist in a city that has lots of direct flights from Dublin. If my dentist was in Bratislava my treatment would still have cost me very little, but because I have to fly to my town my flights cost double."

Treatment Abroad / Medical tourism news
www.treatmentabroad.com