My parents’ friend called and said one of their relatives had a kidney transplant in Taiwan. Basically you can contact the hospital and they will source a kidney for you and perform the transplant. Of course as a foreigner, you will have to pay everything out-of-pocket. My sister estimated that surgery for donor and patient probably costs ~$400k in the US and I’m guessing ~$250k for the actual kidney.
The interesting part is that I was born in Taiwan, and like my post about Canadian health insurance, I think I can qualify for Taiwanese health insurance if I live there for six months. If I do so, I will need to pay for dialysis out-of-pocket during that period since I can’t slip back to the US every other day for Medicare coverage.
Medicare will also be an issue since my parents’ friend is over 65, I don’t think they will lose coverage. However, since I qualified for Medicare through ESRD (kidney disease), if I get a transplant outside the US, I will neither need dialysis nor another transplant, which means no Medicare. In the US, Medicare will pay for 3-years of post-transplant medication. If I go with the foreign route, I will need to keep or find a job for medical insurance to pay for immunosupressive drugs.
My sister is schedule for a CT scan next Friday. Let’s hope for the best. Next option is to transfer my wait list to Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. I don’t want to think about the Taiwan option, yet.
Life with chronic diseases 