Both Saint Mary’s Hospital and Good Morning hospital also offer these services to expats. They take a variety of insurances. Both hospitals have international patient service offices where the employees all speak English and can assist you with any billing or insurance questions via phone or by email. If you go in person, the International Patient Service Center is located on the second floor (just take the staircase on your right when you enter the hospital) at St. Mary’s and is located on the first floor at Good Morning hospital. You can also call their office numbers at:  St. Mary’s 010-8700-3163 and Good Morning Hospital: 031-5182-7691.

My family and I choose to use St.Mary’s as we have found they have amazing, caring and supportive staff. Let me take you on my adventure of receiving a health screening. The appointment took some time as several tests were conducted. Also it may differ from person to person, but they had me fast before I arrived. In hindsight the biggest mistake I made was not using one of their translators to help me with the screening. My Korean husband came with me to translate but our toddler had other plans and needed his attention more than I did. So about ten minutes in I was left to figure things out with my (less than) intermediate Korean skills. 

First they gave me hospital clothes to change into and escorted me to the locker room to change and lock up my personal items. 

After changing, they conducted basic tests such as: vitals, blood, urine, body measurements, hearing and vision. It was at about this time that I lost my translator/husband. My toddler was over the hospital scene and needed to adventure elsewhere. Things got a bit interesting when I was left to my own devices. I quickly found out that my knowledge of Korean medical vocabulary is microscopic. 

I was ushered into another area where I went from door to door with each room containing a different medical professional to perform a test. It is at this point where it would have been nice to have my husband translate which test was going to happen next. But as it was, it became like a fun game show where I didnt know what surprise would be on the other side of the door! In this set of doors I was able to receive joint disease testing, thyroid scan, body scan, mammogram, chest x-ray, regular ultrasound, pap smear and a few more tests that I honestly am not exactly sure what they were testing for. 

Once the tests were all done I was able to meet with a doctor to go over the initial results. Luckily my translator/husband and toddler resurfaced and I was able to ask the questions that I wanted to. About a week and a half later all of my test results came in and were emailed to me. I found this part to be truly amazing. The results were very detailed and included a bio-age analysis report that has been extremely helpful to reference. 

I strongly encourage everyone to get this Annual Health Screening done while living in this great country. I can’t begin to comprehend how much these tests would have cost me if I were to attempt to do this in America. 

It took less than two hours and with my insurance became very affordable.

I look forward to my next screening. It will be fun to see if I can make improvements on any of my test results, hopefully my Korean will have improved by then as well. 

About the Author 

Cat Son is a Colorado Native who calls Hawaii home. She enjoys spending as much time outdoors as she can. She loves exploring Korea with her family.