On Tuesday Mar 10 we both went in to the hospital in
Gerrit saw that the ultrasound machine being used on him was a new Siemens Acuson SC2000, made by the company he worked for briefly long ago! He excitedly pointed that out to the nurses, but they didn't seem impressed. Or his Portuguese was that bad. He was faced away from the big color display for most of the exam, but he heard the familiar whoosh, whoosh of the Doppler audio. He did the Doppler audio electronic design, among other things, for the Siemens Quantum ultrasound machine he worked on a-way back when. This was before his three-week employment with Acuson and their subsequent acquisition by Siemens, which is another story altogether.
The following day we returned to the hospital so Pat could have her cardio monitor removed and to get an ultrasound scan of her shoulder, which has been bothering her for years and won't seem to heal. We were an hour early for her scan, but they got her in immediately. Arriving quite early and being seen right away for an exam has happened twice to us here and we don't remember it ever happening in the US. Again the whole experience was great, and we went out to lunch afterwards.
Have we mentioned that medical care payments here are as easy as buying something in a department store? You pay as you leave from your appointment or exam, there in the hospital or clinic. This seems weird at first, but it's so much more sensible than getting a surprise bill a month later and then wrestling with possibly multiple insurance companies to find out what the procedure actually cost and who pays what. Here they start with a reasonably priced procedure, which is posted publicly. This is impossible in the US since different insurance companies negotiate different prices, which they consider trade secrets. The US is moving toward better price transparency, but hospitals and insurers are kicking and screaming about it. From the posted price the health center here subtracts what insurance covers, and you give them a credit card for the remainder. Neat, clean, and economical for everyone.
(We checked with our AI oracle Gemini to verify the health care comparisons above, and "he" claimed that comparing health care pricing in the US to Portugal's standard health care system is about as stark a contrast as you can find in the developed world. He concluded, "The US is currently spending billions of dollars on software, audits, and legal attestations just to try and achieve the level of price clarity that a Portuguese citizen gets from a simple poster on the wall of their local
We had one bid on interior house painting from an excellent painter, but it was pretty steep. Quality paint is indeed expensive here, but this seemed over the top. So Gerrit has redoubled his efforts to find another painter and has rounded up some candidates. As of Friday Mar 13 we have three painters coming to appraise the job next week.
We heard back from
We learned a useful new word too. There is a gastronomical fair in a small town north of us each year, featuring specialty lamb dishes of the region, called
(As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click outside a photo when you're done. Also, you can click on the bold underlined phrases to play the audio.)