Emergency Medical Care in Italy

You should get travel insurance with medical and evacuation. There are multiple threads on the forum about it. Also look at insuremytrip.com for insurer/policy comparisons.

While Medicare won’t cover you out of the US, if you have AARP/united Healthcare supplement PART F the policy has some foreign healthcare coverage. Other insurance companies supplemental part F may also have coverage. It will NOT pay to get you home if you have an emergency. Look at your policy. When I signed up for Medicare/supplemental only part F covered non-US medical costs.

Assuming you are traveling on a US passport (not another EU country), you can get emergency medical care in Italy but it won't be free. The free national health care is for residents. You will be billed for treatment and you have 3 options for payment: 1. your home health insurance covers emergency care worldwide. I know general medicare doesn't but if you have a medicare advantage or supplemental plan they might (mine does). 2. you purchase separate travel medical insurance (definitely advised if your reg insurance doesn't cover you abroad). 3. you pay the bill yourself. Depending on the services the bill may be manageable for you to pay it yourself - health care in other countries is generally much cheaper than in the US.

Follow the above advice and you will be fine.
I have an Italian passport but the Italian National Health Service doesn’t cover me because I am not a resident of Italy, and they cover Italians residents abroad only in emergencies and only if uninsured.

Although I heard that a lot of tourists get away only with minor copays for minor items, like broken legs and stuff, I guess out of generosity of the hospital staff, however I wouldn’t count on it. If you have a major surgery I bet they’ll want to be paid.

I was expected to pay the full cost of medical treatment in Slovenia and France, as was my mother in Greece. We paid via credit card and sought reimbursement from our insurance companies later. While costs in Europe are typically lower than in the US, treatment following a significant accident or major medical event could still be pricey, and the cost of medical evaciution can exceed $100,000.

If you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel.
If you are averse to buying insurance, you ought also be averse to travel.

A month’s worth of medical only insurance will cost several hundred bucks. That’s nothing in the global scheme of things.

What Peter said.
Your trip would be ruined if you had huge bills because you did not have the right, or indeed any, insurance; and you got ill or injured.
I don't know about the US, but here in Canada the Canadian Auto. Association has good travel insurance plans.
Perhaps AAA has a good plan.
Or perhaps you already have a plan with your credit card.
Make sure to get trip interruption and trip cancellation insurance, as well as medical insurance.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply to my question. As it turns out, I just discovered that I am actually covered for International Travel through my UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage Plan. whew!!

Maryann, look at your plan limits. It's an HMO so may not cover much if out of network and anything overseas is out of network. Without looking at my plan F which had the best coverage when I researched and signed up three years ago, I think foreign coverage max is $50,000 and pays 80% of the bill. Like I said above, that will not cover evacuation if you or your husband need to be transported back to the US for treatment. Air transport home with a flight nurse can run in the $50,000+ range. While I am not a fan of Travel Guard (for another reasons), travel insurance is a must. There are several threads from months past about people getting sick or injured while on vacation. Also look at adding preexisting conditions to your travel insurance but there is a short window to buy it from the time you pay for your trip.

No one plans to get sick or injured, but we need to be prepared. Just like car or fire insurance at home.

(Every time I ride my mellow, lazy, older horse my husband tells me "don't fall off". If I could plan for that split second I wouldn't get stepped on, ran into, kicked, bucked/spun/bolted/fall off. And at this age I don't bounce so take all the precautions I can.)

My wife and I were in Italy for a month in March. We elected for an insurance policy that offered flight cancellation insurance and health coverage. Premium was US$183. Company was Allianz. Thank God didn't have to use it but it does offer some comfort knowing you have it if needed.

maryann,

Italy may have "free national healthcare" but I believe that's primarily for residents who pay taxes there. I've used emergency medical care in Italy and part way through my care, I was presented with a bill summary that was already thousands of Euro at that point. Thankfully I always travel with comprehensive travel medical insurance, and I let them deal with that.

I would suggest that you carefully check the Terms & Conditions of your Medicare policy with respect to overseas travel, to ensure that you'll be properly covered.