Actually, when a few hours after admission the staff s partner approached the cashier with a pocket full of money to make a deposit before what appeared would be a Caesarian birth, the offer of any advance payment was expressly turned down and he was told that a bill would only be made upon checking out - as it later was the case. Private hospitals in Thailand generally accept credit cards in payment of bills and credit card holders will probably never be required to make a deposit. Most private hospitals house a number of clinics with medical specialists . On weekdays, clinic hours are usually in the late afternoons and well into the evenings while on Saturdays and Sundays clinic hours are often all day. Doctor s fees are not regulated and physicians or hospitals set their own charges.
Fees vary widely.
A general practitioner in Bangkok may charge 100 to 200 Baht per consultation, while a specialist may request considerably more. In provincial cities, doctor s fees are lower, and in rural areas, they are about a fourth or less of what is charged in the capital. Doctor s fees in hospitals are often not charged by the doctor but by the hospital that employs a physician permanently. A common habit in the Philippines is that physicians set their fees not according to the services they rendered but according to what they believe a person could afford to lose. It must be noted that there is much less risk of being treated that way in Thailand than there is in the Philippines.