Moving to HK with type1 diabetes and other health probs

[smiththegooner]

Hello,
What a brilliant forum very helpful,

My wife hopefully will be offered a job in HK in the next few months, but the problem is me, i have mild type1 diabetes and ITP (body kills my platelets) so i need certain cheap meds, so the question is would this be a problem for us?

thanks in advance
Jonathan

[PDLM]

There was a discussion on this last year: http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/thread25753.html

Since then the KKLEung Diabetes centre website is still "under construction", but this page gives you an idea of the services available: http://www3.ha.org.hk/qmh/department...leung_main.htm

My understanding is that this is within the public health service so it is essentially free to HKID card holders (which you will be if your wife gets the job here you will get a Dependant Visa).

There is also at least one private option as discussed in this thread: http://www.geoexpat.com/forum/thread27373-2.html

[smiththegooner]

thank you so much for your speedy reply
Jonathan

[gypsy3x4]

there is free public health care with the hong kong id BUT it does not pay for monthly meds. (This is a common misunderstanding) You will still have to have some kind of insurance to help cover your monthly meds or it can get very expensive. My meds in the states were about 60 dollars US and I was paying 500 US a month to get them over here because my insurance with the company did not cover monthly prescriptions only one time use. You'll want to really check out health coverage when you get here. I ended up purchasing private insurance on top of the public health care to cover the cost of my meds.

[gypsy3x4]

You can also get a whole bunch of your meds at home before you come over, a holiday supply (90 days) and that can get you through and help you with cost as well.

[PDLM]

You will still have to have some kind of insurance to help cover your monthly meds or it can get very expensive.

As with all insurance, you must, on average, pay in more than you will get back (if this were not the case then insurance companies would not be viable businesses). Hence, if you have an absolutely predictable cost (monthly meds) then no insurance company is going to give you a policy that pays for them that costs less than simply buying the meds directly. Obviously if you can get someone else to pay for the insurance (an employer for example) then that's a different matter, but even then few new policies will cover pre-existing conditions.

[smiththegooner]

brilliant advice thankyou very much and hopefully i will be in HK very soon
Jonathan

[Katanga]

Smiththegooner

I am diabetic and to be honest the medications are pretty cheap. I have never really bough the medication here in HK but I tend to buy it in Singapore. They have this great service that if you are a visitor to Singapore, you just pre-order the prescription drugs (without the prescription) and you collect it at the airport near the duty free shops.

I use Glucophage and it probably costs me about USD50 for about 200 tablets.

I am sure you can buy it in HK too but I have always used Sing but at least the details above give you enough info.

PDLM has given you the details on the diabetes thread which is g8 - I use the clinic here in HK and it is really good.