5 Major Barriers To Healthcare For Immigrants And Expats
As an immigrant or expat, you may face numerous challenges while living overseas. Aside from the problem of making a living and surviving in a foreign country, there is the possibility of facing difficulties in seeking medical attention. There are barriers to healthcare for immigrants that can discourage you from dealing with local medical services.
To supplement your knowledge on immigrant healthcare issues, here are the significant challenges that foreigners often encounter overseas. You will also learn how having international health insurance can minimize these problems in getting proper medical attention.
As an immigrant or expat, you may face numerous challenges while living overseas. Aside from the problem of making a living and surviving in a foreign country, there is the possibility of facing difficulties in seeking medical attention. There are barriers to healthcare for immigrants that can discourage you from dealing with local medical services.
To supplement your knowledge on immigrant healthcare issues, here are the significant challenges that foreigners often encounter overseas. You will also learn how having international health insurance can minimize these problems in getting proper medical attention.
1. Healthcare Providers Making Mistakes Due to Cultural Differences
Studies on the barriers to healthcare for immigrants concerning cultural differences reveal that specific cultural beliefs may impede appropriate healthcare service to people.
For instance, in some countries, healthcare providers were incapable of addressing health issues holistically. Primary care physicians hesitate in delving more beyond the physical attribute of the illness. Their cultural beliefs and training seem to have stopped them from asking more from their patients than what they see.
Treatments provided were more superficial and did not deal with the possibility of more profound causes of the illness like mental health issues or traumatic experiences. Dealing with health issues was straightforward, leaving the root causes of the illness unresolved.
Barriers to healthcare for immigrants are not limited to verbal cues but also extend to body language, tone of voice, and gestures. Cultural differences primarily influence these barriers, affecting the choice of garments, responses to doctor inquiries, expressing a personal opinion, and openness to receiving treatment.
Healthcare providers may also be reluctant to attend to the medical needs of immigrants for fear of being accused of racism. At the same time, they want to avoid claiming responsibility if they make cultural mistakes during their interaction with the patient.
Having a dedicated, in-house, professional interpreter is often attempted to offer multicultural care. This solution may overcome language difficulties but not cultural barriers that limit the interpreter’s understanding of foreign behaviors and beliefs.
The lack of availability of multicultural staff in the healthcare industry creates cultural barriers that hinder foreigners, immigrants, and expats from seeking proper medical attention. Immigrants are more likely to rely on advice from their friends, family, and community, which may not be accurate or adequate.
How Can Having International Health Insurance Help?
The best international health insurance companies understand your needs as a foreigner living overseas. They know of the cultural differences you may encounter, so they will provide you with trained agents to handle multicultural clients.
Sometimes, it is possible to get an agent from your home country, which can boost your confidence in navigating immigrant healthcare issues abroad.
2. Issues on Language and Communication
Aside from cultural beliefs, language barriers also have an impact on addressing immigrant healthcare issues. For example, male interpreters failed to translate the needs of immigrant women in maternity care. In some cases, like emergency phone calls, having interpreters did not guarantee the quality of healthcare provided to foreign patients.
In some cases, complications can arise when a female patient has a male interpreter. Some things get lost in translation because males cannot necessarily express the experiences exclusive to females. Uncertainty can result in what the patient wants versus what the doctor perceives is needed for the situation.
Insufficient language skills are one of the significant barriers to healthcare for immigrants. It can make foreigners reluctant to receive healthcare services.
For instance, misinterpretation may lead to health inequalities and doubts in receiving adequate care. Immigrants and expats might prefer not to receive medical attention at all rather than spend on expensive healthcare without receiving the proper treatment satisfactory to their needs.
Communication barriers to healthcare for immigrants and expats become frustrating for both parties, making medical consultation and counseling more challenging to push through. To resolve this, some medical institutions hire professional interpreters. However, this practice can be impractical and make little difference in how doctors and nurses communicate with their patients.
How Can Having International Health Insurance Help?
With international health insurance, you can limit the cultural barriers to healthcare for immigrants. Your insurer will provide you with professional, multicultural interpretation services when needed. International insurance agents are often familiar with the local healthcare system of the host country, making it easier for you to understand what can be provided to satisfy your medical needs.
3. Possibility of Experiencing Prejudice and Stigma
Some immigrants with certain illnesses have fears of being deported even if they are legal residents. This is because of the uncertainty they feel about how they will be received by people in their community should they learn about their health issues.
Being in a foreign country where they do not know anyone as much as they would have in their home countries brings forth the fear of being rejected and prejudiced by those around them. In this situation, the feeling of being stigmatized may prevent immigrants and expats from seeking healthcare services.
There are cases where healthcare providers suspect foreign patients to be illiterate or have trouble understanding the language even when they do not have any basis for this. This results in the oversimplification of medication instructions, ending with inadequate care provided.
The opposite also happens when healthcare providers assume foreign patients understand everything they say. They give instructions without checking how much of the information they issue has been understood.
How Can Having International Health Insurance Help?
If you are covered with international health insurance, you will avoid stigmas and prejudices in receiving medical service. Global health insurance providers have networks of doctors and healthcare workers trained to handle diverse, multicultural clients. They can provide you with the proper medical attention that you might have trouble getting from the local healthcare system.
4. Lack of Knowledge in the Local Healthcare System
It is easy to look for language classes, but there are no programs to tell migrants and expats about the healthcare system of their host country. The lack of knowledge of local health systems is one of the most significant barriers to accessing healthcare for immigrants. This unfamiliarity develops into distrust and dissatisfaction in the system.
It may take quite some time for immigrants to learn and be familiarized with the healthcare system thoroughly. Studies show that long waiting times for a medical appointment also contribute to the discouragement of foreigners from seeking medical attention from public healthcare services.
In some cases, immigrants hide their chronic illnesses and disabilities because these health issues will prevent them from applying for permanent residency or renewing their visas. Additionally, the fear of getting deported due to a health condition is present, further preventing foreigners from seeking medical attention.
How Can Having International Health Insurance Help?
Having international health insurance can help you navigate the local healthcare system of the host country. Insurance agents can guide you through the complexities of the processes involved, making it easier for you to access available medical services. If you have expat health insurance, you will minimize immigrant healthcare issues and optimize the benefits you can avail.
5. High Cost of Healthcare Service
The high cost of medical services, especially in European and Western countries, is one of the barriers to healthcare for immigrants. High costs prevent them from visiting emergency rooms and even outpatient clinics in fear of handling the bill. They avoid specialty clinics and prominent medical institutes which are more equipped to handle certain illnesses. Instead, they prefer to go to general health centers that provide temporary treatments and lack the expertise to address the health problems fully.
Often, it is the multinational companies that provide basic healthcare coverage to immigrants and expats. SMEs or smaller companies do not provide or offer minimal healthcare coverage to employees, specifically foreign ones.
The inadequacy in coverage, plus the high medical cost of footing the bill out-of-pocket, leads to the reluctance of foreigners to seek proper medical attention. Sometimes, even the employee-provided health insurance for expats is not enough to cover the high cost of medical service.
How Can Having International Health Insurance Help?
One of the most significant advantages of having international health insurance is how it helps avoid the expensive cost of getting medical treatment. Global health insurance providers make sure their clients are covered, regardless of their home country. It can significantly minimize the amount of money that requires out-of-pocket payment to receive proper medical attention.
Foreigners may not receive or be unwilling to receive medical treatment, knowing that its cost is more than they can handle. But if you are paying the monthly premium of expat health insurance, you will discover that it is still lower than how much you will be paying if you get hospitalized.
Getting Global Health Insurance as the Solution
It is possible to experience barriers to receiving healthcare for immigrants when you are living abroad. Cultural and language differences, complex healthcare systems, and costly medical services can stop you from seeking medical attention.
With the help of global health insurance, you can limit these immigrant healthcare issues and optimize your medical benefits overseas. International health insurance providers can make it easier for you to navigate the complexities of getting the healthcare service that you deserve with the help of professionals trained to handle multicultural clients.
We can guide you in choosing the best international health insurance that will fit your needs. Call us for inquiries or request a free quote to get an idea of what we can offer to make your stay abroad safer and more comfortable.
