bumrungrad

Hi Nisha,

Yes, that price includes 3 nights stay on the garden level.  The 6th floor Main Hospital building (the garden level) is our maternity floor. Unfortunately, the garden is only on one side of the building.  When you book your appointment and stay, you can request to be on the actual garden side.  Of course, it depends on availability.

Best regards,

Scott @ Bumrungrad

Hi Sheryl,

When I used to live in Colorado, the ski resorts came out with specially priced season passes which needed to be purchased by May for the next snow season - this means they need to be purchased 6 - 8 months in advance.  You could not just send in a credit card to purchase the passes, you had to show up to get your picture taken.  This effectively limited the passes to Colorado residents.  Perhaps some from Kansas if they were motivated enough.  Why were these passes given these limitations and not offered all year round?  Similarly, there are people that make multiple trips to CO for snow sports - why was this not offered to them?

Although the situations and answers are not completely the same, the answers to your questions lie in this space.

Moving from your question would be the next logical question - why don't we just lower our prices on all of the applicable products/services permanently to the discount level offered by this card?  The answer is that we simply cannot offer that pricing for everyone at that level.

I mis-"spoke" when I said "Because of this, it is designed to be available to Thailand residents only."  You are correct it is not because of the program that it is available to Thailand residents only.  It is because we cannot support this discount level for every patient.

As everyone does, we have to make difficult decisions, some of which won't make everyone happy.  We highly value and appreciate our international patients, and have invested in many, many things to make them happy in many other ways.  This is simply a tough decision we have had to make to make Thailand residents happy - and it does not "take away happiness" from anyone else by not offering it to everyone.  

Apologies, overuse of the word "happy" seems corny, but I hope you can understand.

Best regards,

Scott @ Bumrungrad

Hello Nisha,

At Bumrungrad I can confirm that we do not have separate pricing for our Thai, expat or international patients.  We believe that a two tier pricing structure based on race or demographic is not best for our patients or us.  And our package rates are not negotiable, we have already done our "internal negotiations" to get this pricing.

What Sheryl said is correct - you do have to review the package details to understand what is included and what is not.  On top of this, if you are comparing packages between hospitals, you have to compare what is in these packages item by item, as what is included can be very different hospital to hospital.

For simple cases, my understanding is that you should expect to pay about THB 5,000 or a bit more above the package price in other items and services.  Potentially up to THB 15,000, but to my understanding this should be rare.  In the case of real complications, the pricing can completely vary, depending on the seriousness of the complication.

If you are making the decision simply on cost alone, it is true that giving birth under normal circumstances is going to be pretty much the same at the hospitals, mainly dependent on the doctor's TLC.  Of course at Bumrungrad there is the additional service & pampering, garden level maternity floor, etc.  However, beyond the cost of the delivery, you should also look into comparing the hospital's ability to deal with complications if they arise, both for you and your baby.

Best regards,

Scott @ Bumrungrad

Hello PJBradley,

First, let me give you an apology for our customer service in this issue.  Either standard processes were not followed or our customer service staff did not take initiative to ensure the processes were followed.

Our Healthy Living Club card is our way to offer benefits to local residents, both Thai and expat, that may visit the hospital frequently.  To clarify what the card does, the goal of the program is to offer an Executive Check-up and 3 years of discounts at the same price as the Executive Check-up.  So technically, if there is a need for a check-up, you can get this and 3 years of discounts at the same price.

Because of this, it is designed to be available to Thailand residents only.  However, we have had international patients find ways of obtaining the card.  Because of this, we do check to validate if a patient is living in Thailand.  This is where the problem was.

The process is to ask for proof of residence.  If proof cannot be shown, our staff is to check the records of the patient to validate address and previous visits.  Unfortunately, in this case it appears there was either no attempt to validate from our system's records, or there was no initiative to check with another station with proper computer access if our staff could not validate the patient themselves at their station.  Either way, the effect was the same.

We do believe that our standard of service is much higher than this, and we do believe that you do have the right to complain.  We have clarified the process with our staff and will be able to handle these situations better in the future.  Please be assured that all future applications will be handled in the appropriate manner.

We appreciate your feedback.  Please feel free to write anything else to directly me (or post on this forum, of course!).

Best regards,

Scott @ Bumrungrad

Digitalbanana, on 2010-09-03 17:00:32, said:

Apologies, but just to clarify, this is not entirely accurate.  

Any resident of Thailand can purchase the card, Thai or expat.  Furthermore, you do need to own the card for at least 7 calendar days before it can be used.

Unfortunately, our banner ad on this site used to point to the HLC page, but TV changed the banners and it looks like changed the destination as well.

The English information for the HLC card can be found at:

http://www.bumrungra...lthyliving.aspx

Best regards,

Scott @ Bumrungrad