Medicine in Georgia: do I need insurance and what are the costs?

Traveling to Georgia for a longer period than a week-long tourist trip, the question of medicine and insurance becomes acute. Are local services available to foreigners? Is there a free service? How much will the services of doctors, research, tests, surgery cost? Where to buy health insurance in Georgia? In this article we will answer all the questions.

How does medicine work in Georgia?

First thing is that there is no free medicine in Georgia! You have to pay for all services. Especially if you don't have insurance. Meanwhile, there are a lot of clinics, and good doctors are searched for by recommendations on FaceBook. You won't Google the ratings of specialists here, because whatever doctor you are looking for, go to social networks.

For citizens of Georgia, medicine is also paid. But with a 30% discount from the regular price. The state partially or completely covers the treatment of oncology and some other serious diseases.

Medical insurance to Georgia: do it in advance or on the spot?

There is no big sense to make insurance for a trip to Georgia in your home country. Most local companies work with foreigners, and monthly expenses are not hihg. The only caveat is to prepare for the fact that the contract will be provided to you completely in Georgian (in some cases in georgian), to which the insurance company will successfully and constantly appeal in the future. "We don't cover it – it's clearly spelled out in the contract," is a phrase that you will have to deal with all the time.

How to buy insurance in Georgia for a foreigner and what are the costs?

Medical insurance in Georgia is inexpensive – about 40-60 GEL ($12.7-19) per month, depending on the selected package. You can see an example of packages from a local Unison company here. This company also works with foreigners, regardless of their status in the country: you can be an ordinary tourist without a residence permit.

Companies also work with foreigners: ipsp.ge and ardi.ge

General terms of insurance in Georgia:

• The contract is concluded for a year.
• Payment at the signing of the contract – for the first and last month, subsequent payments are made monthly.
• In case of overdue, you may be temporarily blocked until the payment is made. Please note that the payment of the last month is valid for the last month under the contract – it will not be deducted from the account of the delay.
• Don't worry about the language of communication: in every insurance company that works with foreigners, managers at least speak English. But often – also in Russian, which is spoken by 70 percent of the population in Georgia.

Rafting in Racha-Lechkhumi region

Paragliding from a height of 500-1000 meters

Horse riding in the suburbs of Tbilisi

How does medical insurance work in Georgia?

The system of applying to the clinic for insurance in Georgia is almost the same as in Europe:

First call your insurance company's hotline.

Then you make an appointment with a family doctor (the visit is free), even if you know exactly what your problem is.

Come to the reception, state the problem. A family doctor (aka a therapist) gives a referral to a highly specialized doctor and prescribes recommended tests and studies.

Now you have partial coverage of visiting a highly specialized specialist and passing these studies.

If the doctor prescribes additional tests for you, you definitely need to return to the therapist for confirmation. Only in this case, additional procedures will be covered by insurance.

If we are talking about surgery or expensive procedures (for example, tomography), the clinic draws up a form A100, which you need to send to the insurance company's e-mail. Within ten days you will receive an answer about the possibility and amount of coverage.

Medical insurance in Georgia also partially covers medications prescribed by a doctor (up to 45-50%) and dentistry. In the latter case, the procedure is slightly different:

You call the hotline and ask which dental clinics cooperate with your insurance company.

You are given addresses and phone numbers. In the future, the conditions depend on each specific dentistry. In general, simple procedures (cleaning, caries treatment, filling, etc.) are covered by 50-70%, according to the insurance company's plan. And, for example, the coverage of prosthetics or implantation is at the discretion of the clinic, within 10-50%.

Keep in mind that not the cheapest clinics often cooperate with insurance companies. And often the cost of dental treatment without insurance in conventional dentistry will cost the same as in the one that cooperates with the insurance, already taking into account coverage.

According to the same scheme as dentistry, the insurance partially covers massage services, cosmetology and other procedures in salons with which there is an agreement.

Emergency assistance and ambulance insurance are always free!

Coverage of operations – only from the second year of insurance.

The package includes one free general examination per year (urine, blood, sugar, hemoglobin, cardiogram).

What are the medical expenses in Georgia?

If we look at it as a whole, the costs of doctors, research, and tests are almost the same as in Russia or Belarus. With insurance it turns out cheaper, so we recommend that you apply for it as soon as you arrive in Georgia. What is really expensive without insurance is surgery. The price may vary significantly depending on the clinic.

Examples of expenses (without insurance):

Doctor's appointment - 40-50 lari ($12.7-16)

X-ray of the head – 25 GEL ($8)

X-rayof the jaw – 75 GEL ($24)

Head/brain CT – 110/180 GEL ($35-57)

Abdominal ultrasound – 40 GEL ($12.7)

General analysis of urine, blood - 20-30 GEL($6.4-9.5)

With insurance, expenses are reduced by about half, depending on the chosen plan. A big plus of local medicine is the attitude of doctors: they do not charge extra money for a prescription, additional consultation on the results of tests, specialists willingly share a personal phone number and ask to call for any medical questions.

Medicines in Georgia are noticeably more expensive than in Russia and Belarus. Most likely, because most of the drugs are imported from neighboring countries. From this point of view, insurance is also beneficial: it will be possible to reduce the cost of medicines prescribed by a doctor by half. We will tell you more about medicines in a separate article.

Using insurance in Georgia: personal experience

I used medical insurance in Georgia quite often for various reasons. When I arrived in the country, I ordered a policy just in case, not suspecting that I would use it so often.

Case #1

The first case came just a couple of months after the move. The gynecologist found inflammation, which for some reason was not noticed at the ultrasound in Minsk. Although, judging by the analyses, it was already there then. I was initially prescribed a bunch of medications and injections, for which I safely received a 45% discount. The treatment did not help, and I had to prescribe an operation.

At that time, I did not know that the coverage of operations was only from the second year of cooperation with the insurance company. Therefore, the need to deposit the entire amount came as a shock to me. By the way, the amount turned out to be quite a lot: for a laparoscopic operation to remove the fallopian tube, along with being in the hospital for two days, I was charged 1,600 lari ($ 510). If you add trips to the doctor, all ultrasound, medications before and after, in total I spent about GEL 1,900. At the current exchange rate, it is $600, and then it was more than $700.

There was an idea to have an operation in Belarus, but after calculating the time and money spent on tickets, I realized that there was no special point. In addition, the situation was critical – at any moment the pipe could "burst", provoking internal bleeding.

The operation was done well for me. The attitude of the staff was especially impressive. My gynecologist immediately gave me her personal phone number, constantly called, was interested in how I was. I asked you to contact me for any questions. The staff at the hospital tried their best to understand my Russian – it turned out that the nurses speak mostly Georgian. They treated me very carefully, helped me walk, stubbornly offered painkillers.

But at the end of the second day I decided to run away from the hospital. Firstly, I felt quite well, I could walk on my own with my four stitches on my stomach, although slowly, but independently. Secondly, it turned out that with such a high cost of treatment, local hospitals do not feed. The one in which I was lying was an exception – every day I was given a portion of a cut on water and crackers with tea. In general, the conditions were sad: there was no food, the bed was wildly uncomfortable, there was nothing to do. After a long whining, they were released under my personal responsibility.

Case #2

The second situation happened recently. I began to have a sharp pain in the upper jaw, which gradually went up. I sat on painkillers for a couple of days, and then went to the doctor. After a few questions and an X-ray, the therapist concluded that I had sinusitis and prescribed a course of antibiotics. A week later, there were no changes, and I was referred to Laura. Ent did not agree with the appointment of a therapist and prescribed another course of other antibiotics. But that didn't help either, so I was sent for a CT scan.

CT scan showed that the sinuses are full, so there is nothing left but the operation. They were sent to the surgeon. The surgeon sent me for a detailed CT scan of the jaw, which showed that I had a large cyst in the tooth, which caused the infection. They explained to me that this is a frequent pathology and that the only way is to pull out a tooth, cut out a cyst, clean out the sinuses and sew up. The cost of such an operation is 2,000 lari ($635). But I was convinced that the case is typical, and the insurance should cover 80%.

I directed the question and started waiting. The 10 days specified in the contract, which the insurance company takes to consider the application, have passed, but there was no response. I called the hotline, they transferred me to the customer service department and promised that the personal manager would call back. There was no call. And two days later I called the hotline again. They promised to call back. But another day passes – and there is no answer. Out of desperation, I started writing to an online chat on the site. In which a faceless operator informed me that my application was rejected, since "the disease existed even before signing the contract with Unison." Where and how they found out is not clear, because even the surgeons could not tell when it all started.

In general, I was disappointed in the insurance, and I decided to do the operation on my return to Belarus, where it will be cheaper in any case.

Free medical tests

Any insurance plan includes a free basic examination once a year. Make it simple and fast. After making an appointment with your family doctor in the morning, take a cup of urine with you, donate blood after taking it and go through an ECG on the spot. By the evening or the next day, you will receive the results of the tests by e-mail.

Dentistry in Georgia

I decided to take advantage of the insurance offer and turned to a partner clinic. The clinic turned out to be very good, cleaning with a 50% discount cost me 60 lari ($19). Although after it turned out that even without a discount, it is more than realistic to find this service for such money. And the quality will not be worse. Therefore, after all the modifications were done without insurance at fairly loyal prices. The prosthesis cost me 180 lari ($57), the seal – 50 lari ($16). As a bonus – an excellent very caring doctor, who even put a special pillow under my neck during the prosthetics.

In practice, you can read a lot of different reviews about medicine in Georgia – both good and bad. Someone says that the local doctors are the best, someone recommends going to Turkey right away, despite the much higher cost of treatment. My experience was not bad, apart from the last case with the insurance company. But in general, keep in mind that the cost of operations and medicines in Georgia is quite high. Therefore, it is better to do everything possible in your home country before moving.