In Reply to: BMIC posted by megladon on Tuesday, 25. January 2011 at 06:33 Bali Time:
My sons' had a jetski accident in Bali in 2006 which resulted in my oldest son being admitted to BIMC with abdominal pain. When we took him to the hospital we didn't have the insurance info on us, but were not asked to pay up front before he was admitted. After being examined at BIMC it was found my son had ruptured his spleen. The insurance company also was giving us a lot of conflicting information about the best way to deal with the situation, and were pushing for him to be evacuated to Darwin (we are from Perth).
In the end I decided that the risk of a flight while my son was still bleeding internally was too high, and opted for surgery to be performed in Bali. At that time BIMC didn't have the facilities for surgery, so he was transferred to a local hospital - Prima Medika. The treatment he received there was first class and he has made a full recovery.
As my son was discharged from BIMC before the insurance approval for the accident came through we did have to pay the bill by credit card, but that was refunded later by the insurance company.
What I found out later was that a major reason travel insurance providers will push for sick/injured travellers to be evacuated back to Australia is because once back here the medical treatment is longer part of the insurance claim but falls back to health insurance or Medicare. And in my case I am not sure whether I would have been covered for my expenses in Darwin if my son had been evacuated out of Bali.
Because we remained in Bali for the surgery and recovery period the travel insurance covered all related expenses including accommodation, meals, visa extensions, flight change fees etc.