Does anyone have experience of IMSS? I was wondering if I got it, would they treat me for an existing condition? i was recently in Hospital and it cost me 20,000 pesos for 1 night and that was in Nazareth clinic, not Hospiten or anything and my wife now is getting IMSS, does it work like other insurance where they won't treat something if you've already been sick with it in the last six months? Sorry I know nothing about Insurance, used to the NHS or paying cash
No. IMSS is the national health for employees. It covers 100% of the costs, for any services, treatments or medications they provide, nationwide. IMSS is meant to be family insurance, including the spouse and children, if any. They will ask your wife about family members and it's critical that she include you and the children in the enrollment process. Don't be idle, stay on top of it, Sam, and make sure she does. If you go into the program under her coverage, paid for by her employer, there will be no issues with pre-existing conditions.
Thank you V. I appreciate the response. My wife is sorting it a.s.a.p. Do you know when they are open as she works mon-sat till 2pm and if not open in the afternoon she's going to have to get time off to arrange it all i guess? Does she need to go to the place on the left, on the way to Walmart?
Afternoon is the best time to go there, almost no lines! She might try to get off one hour early on the day she goes, aiming at arrive around 1:30 to 2:00 PM. This is when I've gone, and found there to be very short wait times, at that time of day. You've probably seen the lines, two hundred people, gathered for when they open the doors, each day. She will need to take birth certificates for the whole family- yours translated into Spanish by a Perito; and, your marriage license and copy of your FM2/3; she will need hers, and your, CURP. The administrative offices are adjacent to IMSS General Hospital Zone 3, which is adjacent to the Family Medical Unit No 15, which almost directly across the street from Chedraui, at the corner of Av Tulum and Coba.
There is one other method to getting it but it is limited. My son had to have lung surgery. He was in a private clinic here in PdC and the cardiologist there called in a friend of his (who is a general surgeon at the IMSS in PdC). Eventually, after we'd tried everything here locally, she highly recommended a doctor (pneumologist) at UMAE in Merdia. (Alta Especialidades) which is an IMSS hospital but, as the name suggests, only for very desperate and very sick folks. I think that is where they do chemo also (though their normal hospitals might also do chemo, I'm not sure). At any rate, this doctor got my son into the IMSS hospital in Merida and happy ever after ending AND my son has a year's worth of insurance with IMSS AND at UMAE, so if anything comes up with him, he will be totally covered at UMAE again (which is a really big deal because that hospital is hard enough for nationals to get into let alone a foreigner). So if you have the contacts and are badly off enough to need UMAE, you can get in there without IMSS insurance (and get it retroactively).
Hi, Kathy, you have a wonderful story to tell about the care your son received at IMSS. Perhaps you'll share it on this forum sometime. Sam should not fail to enroll now, just because your son was able to be treated there, though he was not enrolled at the time: the circumstances were too unique for any other uninsured person to be able to count on getting the same breaks your son did. Living uninsured, as your son was, is a highly risky proposition. Better for Sam to get himself enrolled, along with his children, now, while he has the opportunity, instead of waiting for the next crisis. Among my expat friends, I'm not sure any of them have health insurance of any kind, a thing I consider a calculated gamble, with your life the wager.
