DAN Responds

[Underwater Tourist]

I was not reading this thread, but just wanted to show what DAN says about calling them or local EMS first

 

[Joneill]

This is not the case. If a hospital in the US accepts Medicare / Medicaid (and they all do) then they are required to provide treatment to anyone who comes in needing it. Yes, they will probably overcharge you and might even sue you, but you will be treated.

Unless they are full and on divert status in which case they can and will turn you away and direct you to another hospital.

 

[Joneill]

The way to judge a company is not when they get it right, that is what they are being paid to do. The way to judge a company is when they get it wrong, and how they respond.

They should also be judged on how often they get it wrong…

 

[runsongas]

my reading of the whole incident is that too many people have unrealistic expectations for what DAN covers and can provide for the fees they charge. The dive accident is secondary coverage where they did exactly as advertised by reimbursing for costs. If you want immediate medevac service, go pay for Global Rescue.

 

[Umpman]

Content providers are paid by the view.

As a content creator I can tell you that is not true. We don’t get paid for views at all. You get paid by youtube if people watch the ads and click on the ads. And it’s not much money either, it’s pennies. The real way content providers make money is though sponsorships and affiliate links. Dive Talk doesn’t do sponsored videos (at least I have never seen one) and most of their videos are not monetized

 

[crofrog]

my reading of the whole incident is that too many people have unrealistic expectations for what DAN covers and can provide for the fees they charge. The dive accident is secondary coverage where they did exactly as advertised by reimbursing for costs. If you want immediate medevac service, go pay for Global Rescue.

That’s not what they said in their statement…

 

[Blackcrusader]

I think that's a detailed, well-thought out response and I continue to remain confident in DAN and their ability to provide services if I'm ever in an emergency.

I'm curious to hear what others think. In the other threads discussing this incident there were comments from members taking pretty radical steps like opening an AMEX card and deeming DAN "useless" before they even issued their response.

What I think is that when I did not dive a lot last year I did not renew my DAN insurance. I am going to Bali and diving from 09 January. Yesterday I had confirmation from DAN my top package of insurance is now paid for and active.
When I dive with a dive center I also give them not only dive certs but my DAN insurance. If diving with a dive buddy I may have a prepared letter allowing that person to make decisions if I was incapable of doing so myself.

I have several credit cards with different banks in different countries. The top limit I have is with HSBC HK Premier which is HK$400,000 which is more than US$51k. It's an emergency use card. I have other cards with also US$25K limits. I do not expect many people to have these limits on credit cards.

 

[chillyinCanada]

The one thing I go back to is, from my memory of years of holding DAN coverage (and gladly never needing it) is had you call DAN FIRST, and from there they assist.... What I keep stumbling on from the information I have seen, is that the doctor at the site refused to utilize the assistance of DAN, forcing this into a tail spin.... You can't expect this to work out smoothly if all parties don't cooperate. While DAN admits there was a failure of their "sub-contractor", there was also a failure on behalf of the service provider to work with DAN. That will seriously interfere with any coordination of efforts, and I see that as an issue here...

I'm with you on this. I'm more concerned about the doctors' refusal to take the phone call.

How do we deal with this scenario?

As for myself, I often travel without a buddy. I'm aware that I'm in jeopardy if I can't speak for myself, whether it's a car accident or a dive accident.

 

[Cthippo]

THis episode makes it clear to me that it is not safe to travel outside relatively civilized countries with decent socialize healthcare. What he spent on one emergency evacuation is about twice what I make in a year. My experience with all other insurance (never dealt with DAN) is that they will go out of their way to screw you over and that no business can ever be trusted to act in the customer's best interest.

Fortunatly, I have lots of wrecks in the US and Canada to keep me busy.

 

[SlugLife]

my reading of the whole incident is that too many people have unrealistic expectations for what DAN covers and can provide for the fees they charge. The dive accident is secondary coverage where they did exactly as advertised by reimbursing for costs. If you want immediate medevac service, go pay for Global Rescue.

Some of those expectations seem to have come from DAN itself. For example:

(source) When he contacted DAN and tried to access the benefits of his DAN membership and insurance, he did not receive the level of service he should have. Although we are still collecting information about DAN’s response to this incident, we can offer the following additional context to what was previously reported.

It’s important to note that DAN has been dealing with diving emergencies and arranging evacuations for over 40 years and has successfully completed thousands of these missions. When things occasionally go wrong, DAN has responded by improving its infrastructure and updating standard operating procedures based on what was learned. This incident is no different, and members can be assured that DAN has already taken steps to prevent something like this from happening again.

When I read the above, I get the clear impression DAN wants us to have the impression. The impression that they are very successful at arranging these medivacs, failures are rare, we should have confidence in them, and we should expect that level of service from DAN.