You can ask the manager of your hotel or bed and breakfast to do you a favor by translating each of your supporting documents, to save you the trouble upon your return home. Make a note of the then prevailing rate of exchange, and submit a calculation to your plan with your documentation, to more easily facilitate payment. When a member of a clerical staff is processing your claim, he’ll be less inclined to put yours aside for another day or week if it already contains all the necessary and relevant data, organized in a readable format.

Concerning where to go in the event of illness or emergency, your accommodations host should be able to make recommendations for English speaking physicians with private practices, and for private clinics. Regarding competency of the former, while there is a medical school in Oaxaca, many doctors travel out-of-state for their post-graduate training such as to universities in Mexico City or the US, and regularly attend conferences and upgrading courses. Some travel abroad within the context of their specialization training. Indeed the Oaxacan populace appears to take notice of and prefer those physicians who are able to display foreign diplomas.

Our personal experience with emergency treatment over the past 10 years has been nothing but positive for ourselves, our family and our guests, at hospitals Carmen and Molina, both downtown … in terms of competence, speed with which one is attended, and the presence of English speaking ER doctors. On the other hand, we cannot recommend the emergency departments at the civic hospital or IMSS because of delays in receiving treatment, and at minimum in the case of IMSS unavailability of competent medical personnel 24 hours a day to attend to even a commonplace emergency (i.e. suturing). Having said this, many excellent surgeons with private practices perform surgery at the non-private hospitals where there tends to be the more state-of-the-art and sophisticated equipment.

The normal range in price for a consultation with a family doctor, specialist or dentist, is $20 - $50 (all figures are stated in US dollars and are approximate for 2008 unless stated otherwise).

PURELY ELECTIVE AND COSMETIC PROCEDURES

Over the past several years Oaxaca has become a popular destination for Americans and Canadians seeking both plastic surgery and extensive dental work. Word has spread of the competence and quality of work of both nip-and-tuck and dental surgeons, and of course of their extremely reasonable charges relative to those paid to hometown practitioners. Many foreigners, as well as Mexicans from Mexico City and other regions of the country come to Oaxaca for face lifts, breast reductions and augmentations, liposuction and other appearance enhancing procedures. A friend who attended for plastic surgery in Oaxaca by a well-known plastic surgeon a couple of years ago, recently commented that she had read an article in a Canadian magazine indicating the cost for the same procedure which she had performed for $500, was $3500 - $5000 at home. In effect she had a free trip to Oaxaca, and returned home with extra money in her pocket.

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