If you’re traveling overseas (including other “Western” countries), you may need some additional vaccinations, or an anti-malaria prescription.
We’ve used [Passport Health](https://www.passporthealthusa.com/) for this. You submit a listing of your existing vaccinations, plus your itinerary, and they assess what you might need while traveling in each area. There’s an initial trip assessment fee (and a subsequent reduced one for future trip assessments), and you can get nearly all the vaxxes in-house, which is very convenient. They provide a comprehensive personalized “health guide” for your itinerary. However, they *do not* accept insurance, so everything provided is at full cash price.
Note that some of these vaccinations require multiple doses spaced apart, so it’s best to check in with your itinerary long before your trip, especially if you’re planning on visiting multiple countries or regions in a single trip. Depending on where you are going, this can be a significant added cost, so it’s good to know this early and not after you’ve booked anything that’s nonrefundable.
Also keep in mind that some of your vaccinations may be covered/reimbursed by your health insurance (usually true for ones you probably should have gotten earlier in your life) so make sure ask about that. Outfits like Passport Health don't deal with insurance at all, so you're on your own for submitting a reimbursement, and figuring out if you qualify for one in the first place. We discovered that our insurance considers Passport Health to be a “medical facility” instead of a “retail pharmacy,” and that distinction means we couldn’t seek reimbursement through our normal RX coverage, and our medical coverage doesn’t cover travel vaccinations. So, essentially, anything we got through Passport Health would be full price.
However, your primary care doctor or local pharmacy may be able to order the appropriate vaccinations for you too, so you could check on pricing through them, too. They may be able to bill insurance directly, like a normal prescription, so that could save you a big out-of-pocket outlay while waiting for reimbursement (if it’s covered at all).
We were able to save *thousands* of dollars by paying for the assessment through Passport Health, then asking our primary care doctor to prescribe the various vaccinations and having the local Walgreens fill them.
#travel