Medical Care in Fethiye

A part of diving into this insane new way of living is figuring out how to take care of routine medical care when you’re not using standard American health insurance, and you’re in countries where you don’t speak the language.

My goal was to do two things here in Fethiye. One was to get a refill for my blood pressure and cholesterol medicine. The other was to visit the dentist for a cleaning and a checkup.

Medicine

I have international health insurance, but it’s mostly for emergencies. Not routine stuff or medicine. I had questions about Turkey, the main one being could I purchase the medicine here without a prescription?

I’m in a number of Facebook groups, including one where people share info about having medical care all over the world. I searched in that group and found a medical care provider’s WhatsApp number. I sent a message and in just a little while I had my answer. My medicine is available over the counter here. He was even so helpful as to send me pictures and a google map to a recommended pharmacist to pick it up.

At the pharmacy one of the gentlemen running the shop spoke some English. Between that, and me showing a screen capture of what I needed, he confirmed that it was indeed available without a prescription, but there was a catch. They didn’t have the dose that I usually take, and also they don’t sell it as a combined capsule. A minor inconvenience, but I was able to buy it easily. I just take multiple pills instead of just one. The total cost was less than $26 US for about a month’s supply. (a month for the Statin is $5 USD, the two blood pressure medicines together are $21 for 30 days. )

Side note. It’s been interesting not only seeing what you can and can’t buy without a prescription but also learning that you need to be prepared to deal with pharmacies not selling the same dosage. Chrissy and I have seen this both here in Turkey and in Mexico.

The Dentist

Chrissy got a dental cleaning in Mexico which was easy to set up, and very easy to have done. Turns out, Turkey was just as easy. I was a little anxious because we speak way more Spanish than we do Turkish but it turns out that finding an English speaking dentist in a tourist town like this is quite easy to do.

Once again, I used WhatsApp to contact them. I reached out and asked if they could schedule an appointment with me for the following week for a cleaning and checkup. They asked when I wanted to come in. Mind you, this was Saturday afternoon. I asked if Tuesday at 11 would work and they said sure. Just make sure to bring my passport.

I arrived at the scheduled time and after a short wait was taken in for an x-ray. The facility was clean and very modern looking. The x-ray was the kind where you stand up and the machine moves around your head. After the x-ray I went back to the waiting area and waited for maybe 10 minutes before someone came to take me to the dental chair.

I met with the dentist and his assistant. He told me that the x-ray looked pretty good, that my implants (I have two) and both of my bridges looked good. But there was an old filling that he wanted to examine more closely.

The dentist performed the cleaning himself. His English was quiet good. After the cleaning he complimented me on my low tarter (I’m a daily flosser now) but said that the old filling would probably need replacement soon.

I asked if he thought that he could schedule me to have it done in his office and to my absolute shock he said, “I can do it right now.”

I CAN DO IT RIGHT NOW!

I don’t know about you, but in the US it always took me weeks, if not months, to get an appointment with a dentist or a physician. And if they needed to do something more than what was expected, that wasn’t going to be for another couple of weeks. I couldn’t believe it. The next thing that he said is equally shocking to my American ears. He flat-out told me the price. No “Well, let’s see what insurance comes back with…” He just quoted me the price in British pounds.

Not being squeamish about dental work, I agreed to go right ahead with it, and in another minute he numbed things up for the drill.

Less than an hour later, I was done. He told me to keep up my flossing, don’t bite too hard, and let him know if I experienced any other issues.

Total cost for the visit, without insurance: $291.64 (USD)

That price was for cleaning, x-ray and to have a filling replaced, and I won’t get mysterious unintelligible bills showing up in the mail for the next six weeks. I was able to schedule the appointment, have a diagnosis and have the treatment in three days.

I’m beginning to believe.

One of the things that I have been curious about for years now is to see for myself if what “everyone says” about medical care in other countries is true. And so far, it seems completely true. The U.S. is absolutely broken.