Singapore Expats

Hi! My family is considering to move to Singapore for a year (my husband will be going to school). We have a 18 months daughter who has development delays. So she needs good medical support and a lot of physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I have questions and concerns about moving to Singapore and hope that you all can share some info. Here are my questions:

1 - Are there good pediatricians and therapists in Singapore? Is it easy to schedule appointments with the doctors or do the doctors there have a long waiting lists for expats?
2 - Do we need to get private health insurance or are medical services affordable if we just pay out of pocket? How much would health insurance cost for a family of 3?
3 - Is it easy to find housing? How much am I expecting to pay? Do the rentals usually come furnished? A 1 or 2 bedroom apartment will do.
4 - What is the least expensive way to ship our belongings to Singapore? We're in US (Southern California).

Thanks in advance for your help!

Winnie

crelfma wrote:Hi! My family is considering to move to Singapore for a year (my husband will be going to school). We have a 18 months daughter who has development delays. So she needs good medical support and a lot of physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I have questions and concerns about moving to Singapore and hope that you all can share some info. Here are my questions:

1 - Are there good pediatricians and therapists in Singapore? Is it easy to schedule appointments with the doctors or do the doctors there have a long waiting lists for expats?
2 - Do we need to get private health insurance or are medical services affordable if we just pay out of pocket? How much would health insurance cost for a family of 3?
3 - Is it easy to find housing? How much am I expecting to pay? Do the rentals usually come furnished? A 1 or 2 bedroom apartment will do.
4 - What is the least expensive way to ship our belongings to Singapore? We're in US (Southern California).

Thanks in advance for your help!

Winnie

1. Yes, there are great pediatricians here and generally speaking you can get in to see a doctor the day you call (not for specialists, but for your primary doctor). The healthcare in Singapore is excellent and much more accessible than it is in the States.

2. I would never recommend you go without health insurance. I don't know what we pay as it is covered by my husband's company. What if you were injured outside if Singapore? health insurance is a must.

3. 'Furnished' in Singapore can mean built-in closets and appliances, but some actually do come fully furnished with sofas, etc... The price range for a 2 bedroom is probably S$800 - S$18,000 so you'll have to be much more specific. If you search online be advised that there are lots of bogus listings with artificially low prices.

4. A sea shipment is the cheapest. It depends though, are you filling a container or shipping a few boxes? If there are items you can't wait 4 - 6 weeks for, you'll have to send them through an air shipment or pay the overages in luggage and bring and extra suitcase with you.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your helpful reply. I'll definitely do some more research on health insurance. The school my husband is planning to attend is INSEAD and I believe it's in the Queensway area(?). What areas do you recommend we should be look for housing that is relatively close to the school and is family friendly? Do you have some trustworthy websites in searching for rentals?

Thanks!

crelfma wrote:Do you have some trustworthy websites in searching for rentals?

Thanks!

You are on one!

My daughter is having ST & OT sessions in a private practice.

From what I heard, public practice have longer waiting list... (My daughter could be followed very quickly... they mostly have waiting lists for the saturday's session)

We basically pay for every cents of it, as our health insurance exclude ST for all developmental issues.

Try to get health insurance... but as it is private system... and given that your daughter problems are already documented you might have problems getting anyone to insure her.

( Here we basically are insured under the healthcare plan from hubby's employer and didn't get to choose anything about the policy)

merichan wrote:My daughter is having ST & OT sessions in a private practice.

From what I heard, public practice have longer waiting list... (My daughter could be followed very quickly... they mostly have waiting lists for the saturday's session)

We basically pay for every cents of it, as our health insurance exclude ST for all developmental issues.

Try to get health insurance... but as it is private system... and given that your daughter problems are already documented you might have problems getting anyone to insure her.

( Here we basically are insured under the healthcare plan from hubby's employer and didn't get to choose anything about the policy)

Thanks for the replies.

Merichan, if you don't mind, could you please let me know how much you're paying for OT and ST? I want to get an idea of how much it would cost if the insurance doesn't cover any of my daughter's therapies.