Experience top-quality healthcare in Costa Rica

I'm in front of SEMA Hospital in Costa Rica, which is the main private hospital in the country. And I am here today to pay out of pocket for medical care. So, I thought I would walk you through the process of why I'm here, how I made an appointment, how much it cost for all of the procedures, and what the outcome is since we're here in Costa Rica.

I've spent eight years living in Costa Rica. And since then, I've been traveling around the world, helping people move to other countries through my relocation company.

So, why am I here? What is wrong with my health right now? Well, I've made two appointments, one for today and one for tomorrow, to get two opinions, as you do, with different specialists that I'm hoping can give me some answers as to what I've been experiencing.

Well, it all started about a year ago now after a period of really heavy travel, where I started experiencing some strange numbness in my left leg. You know, when you Google things, it usually looks a lot worse than it is. Just Google and ChatGPT doesn't always give you the right answer, but from what I could tell, it might be something with a disc in my back. It could be a lot of different things. I don't really want to speculate, but I guess we'll find out today, hopefully.

It wasn't happening frequently enough that I felt like I needed to go to the doctor. I thought, okay, maybe I've been sitting at my desk for too long. Maybe I've been sitting on planes too often. So, I thought with a combination of physical therapy, yoga, stretching, Pilates, I got a standing desk, I got a treadmill to go under my desk, I thought with all of those things that I could heal whatever the issue was.

But over time, it would kind of come and go. And then recently, in about the last few weeks or the last month, it's gotten a lot worse where it's even affecting my left foot. I'm feeling numbness on the pad of my foot, which is super scary.

I didn't have time in the US before this trip. So, I went to the SEMA Hospital website. I contacted all of the neurologists and spine surgeons, anyone like that. Some people were full or it didn't show any availability. So, I just sent them an email or oftentimes a text message on WhatsApp, and I was able to get in for two appointments back to back.

So, I'm going to go to the first one now and see what their opinion is and what kind of tests I'll have, how much it will cost, and then I'll go to the next one tomorrow.

And it's kind of interesting because my mom is also here getting dental work done. And I also went in and got a checkup yesterday. So, I'll also show you later in this video what that dental office looks like and how much it costs to get cleaning, x-rays, consultation. And they do incredible x-rays, these panoramic 3D x-rays that cost like $800 or $1,000 to get in the US. So, you've got to see that. It's super cool.

Founded more than 25 years ago, SEMA Hospital is the best private hospital in the region, offering comprehensive medical care with more than 60 specialties. They also have a lifestyle center, which is a preventative medicine area offering checkups, lab tests, imaging diagnostics, specialized exams, and more.

Okay, just finished in the doctor's office and it cost 70,000 colón, so about $140 for the appointment. He said I have meralgia paresthetica, which is one of the things that came up in my Google search. But he said that it's not serious. It's just uncomfortable and annoying, but it's not like a grave danger that I could be paralyzed or something like that.

So, he said it's from a compressed nerve in my hip, likely from airplane seats and having the seat belt on too tight or the position I was sitting in, and that it can just go away with time as long as I avoid compressing the nerve more.

So, in this case, I didn't have to get any kind of tests or other treatments, and I don't have to come back. He said there's medicines and things that you can take, but it's not recommended because those have side effects.

As far as the wait, I only had to wait 15 minutes because there was another patient ahead of me. And he was apologizing, but I felt like the appointment was really thorough. He took his time. It wasn't rushed like that feeling that you get often in the US.

And then he said I can always message them on WhatsApp or email if I have any other questions. So, now I'm going to go back to the hotel and think about if I want to come back tomorrow for another opinion or if I'm good with this one. So, we'll see.

The next day, I met up with my mom for breakfast, which comes included with your package stay when getting dental care here in Costa Rica.

Welcome back to Costa Rica. I'm standing in front of the Dr. Muñoz Cavallini dental office here in the center of San Jose. I've been here twice now with my mom, and I can say that there's a lot of happy customers around here saving tens of thousands of dollars on their dental procedures.

So, I don't have the exact price list, but I'll link to the website if you want to check it out if you've been looking to get dental care at a more affordable cost and also have a good time, hang out here at the Sky Café, stay in some of the nice hotels and apartments.

This is not sponsored, but it's a place that I've become very fond of, having come here with my mom and also having gotten my own dental consultation during this visit. I didn't want to be left out, so I paid $250 for a dental cleaning, these panoramic x-rays that are insane, like the level of detail that you can see, and also a consultation by one of the dentists here.

Perfectly A-OK on my report, but you never know, so I got a preventative checkup here.

Dr. Marco's International Dental Clinic was founded in 1968. And it's really a place that feels like family.

I'm here with Dr. Marco. He's going to show me x-rays of my teeth.

What I was talking about, this is a dental CT scan. And here you'll see different images of your oral cavity. So, as you see, I'm moving the inspection window around the 2D image. This is the panoramic we just saw.

Now, as I move my inspection window, I'm going to place it in tooth number 30, and I'm going to show you how the other images work. This is a longitudinal view. We're looking at a side view. And if I magnify it, then we can check the condition of the tooth and other important structures.

This is the cross-sectional view. If you see this diagram here, I'm looking at you from back to front. That's the back of your head. And when I see you from the back of your head, based on this location, if we magnify it, we can see the tooth from side to side.

So, we're able to see things on the back and on the sides that we wouldn't be able to see with other images.

Your teeth look fine. I'm very happy to report that to you. Your teeth are healthy, and we want them to stay healthy.

This is your opportunity to look at your own skeleton and be alive at the same time. It is a very weird feeling, to be honest. I feel like I'm looking at a museum, like a mummy of myself, but I'm alive.

This is the 3D image we were just mentioning. This is an image of your skull. It's not the complete skull, only the area that applies to us. We use this to look at important anatomical landmarks and to help plan treatments.

One of the advantages we have here is that all of this equipment, the digital panoramic and the CT, is here in our own office. You don't have to go anywhere else, and these are included in the cost.

People come here for dental implants, full mouth reconstructions, cosmetics, and general dental care. This type of imaging is critical and mandatory for implant placement.

And we also get to have fun because we host a patient dinner every Wednesday night. We're going to the country club with a group of patients, and we're going to have fun.

So, if you need dental work in Costa Rica, come to Dr. Marco. Not sponsored.

Hi guys. So, as it turns out, it looks like I'm going to miss my second doctor's appointment here in Costa Rica because it's rush hour. I've been in this bank too long, and the last three Ubers I chose cancelled on me. It also looks like there are three or four accidents on the way to the hospital.

So, it's probably going to take me like 30 or 45 minutes to get there instead of 15 minutes. So, I'm just going to go ahead and skip this appointment. But that's okay. I can just get another appointment in the US and then compare what the diagnosis is there to what they told me here.

My mom was really impressed with the neurologist that I went to see yesterday. So, I'm really curious about what the doctors in the US will say about my condition.

Either way, I hope that this news gave you a lot of good information about how much it costs to pay out of pocket for medical care in Costa Rica.

So, why did I have so many bank accounts in the first place? Well, there's a lot of reasons why you might want to open a bank account in another country. First and foremost, if you're going to be living there, it can be a lot more convenient to be able to go to a local bank account, have a local debit card, pay lower or zero ATM fees, be able to pay your rent, groceries, things like that in another country.

Most of my life, I've been traveling as a digital nomad. So I've spent anywhere from a month or so to a few months or even years in certain other countries. And so while I was living there, I tried to open different bank accounts. And mostly this was for my own convenience, but it it's also for my relocation business to understand how to open bank accounts in other countries as a US citizen and then help my clients do the same.

Besides living in that country, you might want to open an account in another country to be able to diversify investments, maybe holding different currencies. There's a lot of different like interest-bearing accounts and other types of investment vehicles that you can find in other countries. And it could also be for security if you don't feel safe having all of your money in one country, such as the US.

I'm getting a lot of people asking, can they move their IRAs and 401ks and savings account and things like that to different countries just to be able to hedge against any kind of risk that there might be having all of your assets in one country.

So over my 20 years of traveling internationally, little by little, I started opening accounts in different places wherever I was going, Costa Rica, because I spent a lot of years there.

But what I found is that that can be a lot of hassle and a lot of headache, more than it's worth, getting any of those benefits from having those accounts there.

One of the first reasons why I decided to start closing these accounts in different countries is because I wasn't spending a lot of time there anymore. So, the last time I was in Canada was actually in 2020, right before the pandemic started, and I haven't been back there since. So, it's a lot of administrative hassle and headache to maintain accounts open in different countries if you're not actively using them.

And during the pandemic, when we couldn't travel for a while, I lost access to a lot of my bank accounts. I lost access to my account in Malta, in Nicaragua, in Costa Rica, because if you're not using the accounts often enough and if you're not logging in and if you're not physically there, then these things can happen. The accounts can go inactive, you might change your password and then get locked out for some reason.

In the case of Costa Rica, I had to change my password every 3 months and I had to use my debit card to be able to change my password. And when my debit card expired and I couldn't get a new one because I wasn't in Costa Rica, I then got locked out of my bank account for like 2 years and had to go back there and reopen it.

And the same thing happened with Nicaragua. I crossed over the border into Nicaragua and tried to withdraw money from an inactive bank account, a closed bank account, because I lived there back in 2008 and owned property there. It had a significant amount of money in it, enough to justify crossing the border, but it took me all day to reopen the account, prove who I was with a new passport, go through bank management, and finally withdraw the money.

Another account I had back in 2013 was in Malta. After leaving Europe, I didn't use the account for a while. The only way I could officially close it and withdraw the money after my debit card expired was to physically go to Malta. I happened to be there on a cruise, had one day in Valletta, and while everyone else was out enjoying excursions, I was sitting in the bank withdrawing my money.

If you're not physically in a country, even with online banking, it can be really hard to renew debit cards or solve issues if you ultimately have to go into the bank. So if you have accounts in different countries, it's better if you're living there or nearby.

In many cases, banks won’t send money internationally unless you go in person to fill out a wire transfer form. Flying to Panama just to fill out a form is not effective.

From a US perspective, there's also the administrative side. If you have foreign bank accounts with a combined balance of $10,000 or more during the year, you need to declare them using the FBAR form. This means reporting balances, bank details, addresses, and account numbers. This is extra administration for you and for the banks.

Because of FATCA, many foreign banks don’t want US customers at all. I've walked into banks where the moment they saw my US passport, they refused service. You want to feel like a valued customer, not someone a bank doesn’t want due to extra paperwork or perceived risk.

Opening an account in another country if you don't live there can be very difficult. Often you need residency, a tax ID, or a local address. Customer service can also be challenging, especially when banks only offer local phone numbers that you can't call internationally.

Traditional brick-and-mortar bank accounts abroad often come with higher fees, including international transfer fees and poor exchange rates. Some international wire transfers can cost $90 or more, plus hidden currency conversion markups.

This is why fintech solutions like Wise changed everything for me. Wise allows you to open multi-currency accounts online without visiting a bank, without excessive paperwork, and without hidden exchange markups. You get the mid-market exchange rate, low fees, and fast transfers.

Wise essentially replaced the need for nearly all of my offshore bank accounts. I can send money globally, pay rent, pay contractors, withdraw cash, and manage multiple currencies from one app.

So while I still maintain bank accounts in the United States, Wise eliminated the need for having 10 different bank accounts in different countries. You don’t even need to live abroad to benefit from it.