Health Check plan

[malcontent]

My company provides us with a basic health screening package (I believe it’s the Silver one) through Fullerton Healthcare. I can’t recall the exact amount they pay, but it’s well under $3k, closer to $1k+. Fullerton also has other packages that are more comprehensive.

Let me just warn you ahead of time, when you go through health screening here, it’s a bit like taking your car for a tuneup... the mechanic has an incentive to find things wrong or at least raise suspicions about possible things that could be wrong in order to maximize revenue. Don’t be surprised if try to “upsell” you some additional tests, etc, when reviewing the conclusion of your results. If you are from Asia like my wife is, there is a tendency to show great deference to doctors and strictly heed their advice, which can increase the vulnerability to such ploys.

During my last visit, the package included a check for Hep B immunity, and since it had been over 10 years since I was vaccinated, I had none. The doctor strongly recommended that I check my Hep A as well. I told her that it had been over 10 years since my vaccinations for both Hep A & B, so might as well get both. She still insisted that I should check my Hep A immunity. I checked online and showed her that after 10 years it is typically no longer effective. She said many websites claim many things. I showed her that even the website for the Singapore health authority here said similar things. She then argued that in all her years she had never seen a patient that had gotten a Hep A vaccine that wasn’t effective for life. Then I asked, well why do we need to check, can’t we just assume I’m still immune then? She said no, it’s not guaranteed. Then I went back to my original thought, just get the vaccine, why test? Especially since the test costs almost as much as the vaccine? The other funny thing was, I would have to wait for the test results and only get the Hep B vaccine on that day, rather than taking the combined Hep A & B in one shot. In the end, I refused to take the test and insisted on taking the combined Hep A & B shot. She wanted me to take some other tests as well, which I refused. In the end, I got my Hep A & B shot, but the doctor wouldn’t look at me or talk to me anymore!

[Max Headroom]

Let me just warn you ahead of time, when you go through health screening here, it’s a bit like taking your car for a tuneup... the mechanic has an incentive to find things wrong or at least raise suspicions about possible things that could be wrong in order to maximize revenue. Don’t be surprised if try to “upsell” you some additional tests, etc, when reviewing the conclusion of your results. If you are from Asia like my wife is, there is a tendency to show great deference to doctors and strictly heed their advice, which can increase the vulnerability to such ploys.

This!