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Louise Thomas
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An influencer’s visit to a Turkish hospital for cheaper medical exams has sparked debate about the American healthcare system on TikTok.
In a viral TikTok video, influencer Bryn Elise (@bryn.elise) gave her followers a behind-the-scenes look into the VIP experience at a hospital in Turkey, which included 30 exams - ordinarily expensive in the United States - for the low price of $810. She started the video by saying: “I flew to Turkey for the most in-depth checkup of my life.”
“Doing this in the US would have cost me thousands and taken months to line up,” she said, adding later that the hospital was a highly-lauded memorial group hospital accredited by the Joint Commission International. “But in one day, we’re doing it all - scans, tests, meetings with specialists - and the price of everything is jaw-dropping.”
The video continued to show what Elise called the “fanciest” hospital she’d ever seen, and she consulted with a translator and coordinator named Sam who showed her around the facility. She first got her blood drawn, then underwent an EKG test for blood pressure, and measured her height and weight.
Next, doctors had her head to radiology for a chest X-ray as well as an abdominal and thyroid ultrasound. After that, she was escorted to the nuclear medicine wing where she received a bone density scan.
She then took a lunch break, eating food from popular restaurant BigChefs Market, which supplied the whole hospital and gave patients the option to order food to their rooms. Afterward, she met with the hospital’s internal medicine doctor, who went over the results of the more than 30 exams, scans, and cancer markers she received.
Once she asked all of her pressing questions, she went to the gynecologist to get a pap smear and the ophthalmologist to get her eyes checked. She also saw a cardiologist to do a stress test and analyze her heartbeat.
Elise was able to get more exams and scans done than most American patients could afford with the country’s skyrocketing healthcare prices. In the comment section, users were flabbergasted by just how much she was able to do for under $1,000.
“This is like ACTUALLY a checkup,” one person wrote. “Meanwhile, in the US at an annual [appointment] they tap your knee, take your [blood pressure] and send you off.”
Another added: “EVERY SINGLE specialty doc in one day is life-changing!”
“It’s an absolute crime that we can’t do this once a year in America and have it covered by insurance,” someone else said. “We are so behind.”
This isn’t the first time that a debate about expensive medical bills in the US has sparked on TikTok. In 2021, one California woman went viral on the app when she revealed that her hospital had billed her more than $50,000 for the birth of her baby. Her insurance plan ultimately paid $50,816.02 for her delivery, and she only owed $250.
However, she explained that most people don't have a spare $50,000 to have a baby, noting it was “like a down payment on a house in some place.”
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