Retirement in Panama

Hello. I am not a fulltime Panama resident, but travel there often and have made plenty of mistakes buying property.

Certainly, the best medical care is in Panama City, including especially at the Johns Hopkins Hospital located in Panama City.  Other areas have ample healthcare at affordable costs, so unless you're needing immediate access to non-routine services or are unable to drive four hours for more extensive medical care, substantially all of Panama is open to you as an option.

You might try and identify and rank priorities. Do you want cooler mountain temperatures in a largely expat community?  Is beach or oceanfront living important?  How remote or how much solitude do you want?  Does living comfortably mean swimming pool and fitness center or just runnning water?  Truthfully, you can live on $1200 +/- a month, not fancy or you may need all $5,000 a month, depending on your lifestyle.  Personally, I like Panama City for all of its restaurants, bars and stores, particularly the El Cangrejo district.

By the way, there can be savings to living abroad, be in Panama or Ecuador or other places, but not necessarily.  Both of these countries are USD based and depend on imports for many products you'll need.  Many debate whether housing is less expensive. I strongly believe it is based on comparable areas of the U.S. (comparing rural areas to rural areas and Panama City to urban areas).  Regardless, the largest housing savings are:

- Far less property taxes
- Typically, much lower maintenance costs (including condo fees if applicable)

These savings can be substantial.

But, personally, I believe the greatest savings realized in living abroad is the lifestyle change.  Folks tend to live a simpler life without feeling they're giving up on their standard of living.  Indeed, many would say they are improving their standard of living while lowering or maintaining their cost of living, such as by not bailing out cousin Harry or sister Rita from everything they get into, etc.

Hello Sawman

Is healthcare pay as you go or can you pay monthly for John Hopkins health insurance?

I'll defer to others, but my information is that health insurance for those desiring it runs around $50 a month per person.  This will allow treatment at the better hospitals, the same one you could have access if you were to pay-as-you-go.  Those with no insurance and no financial resources have less options and at least in Panama City go to other hospitals and clinics.  I am certain Johns Hopkins is available to those with insurance or willing to pay.

The bottom line is to me that expats simply don't worry like they do in the States on what medical care will cost, whether they have insurance or not.

That said, there are no safety nets in Panama for expats.  No matter how inexpensive medical care is in Panama (and most of the world outside the "Western World") if one is completely destitute and dependent on the U.S. or state governments for food, medical care, etc., stay in the U.S.  As I've said, I'd rather be a broke American in the U.S. than a broke American in Panama.

How much health care do you need?  That answer will determine the best city for you I think.  I would suggest when you travel around Panama stop in at the clinics and hospitals to see if you would want to be treated in them.  I was quite content to use the local doctor in Boquete.  He spoke English, he was trained in PC and he spent 30 minutes with me and only charged me $7.50.  But it was only a throat infection and I didn't need anything serious done.  If you need major medical I would suggest being as close to PC as possible. 

Have you looked at medical evacuation insurance.  That is not the same as medical insurance and most plans, unless they are specifically for medical evacuation, will not cover the costs, which can exceed $100,000. 

On $5000 a month you will live incredibly well.  The locals live on less than $600 a month.  I'm guessing you don't want to live like a local.  You want hot water, a gated community, a car, a washer and a dryer, is that right? 

So why Panama?  You can buy a home right now in Valencia Spain (right on the beach) for around $135,000.  So if you want beach living and you have to speak Spanish...

And being a resident of the EU has a lot of other benefits. Just another option.

There are large expat groups in Coronado, the Azuero Peninsula and of course in Chiriqui.  You don't say how long you are going to be traveling in Panama so that might be a factor in how much of the country you will get to see.  And are you planning to drive in Panama to get around?  That opens quite a few possibilites as well.

If you can give everyone on here a little more information they might be able to help you better.

Florence

SanDiegoLady wrote:

Hi everyone,
new to the board. My husband and I considering a trip to Panama in Sept. 2013, we are looking at retirement and want to take a look around. He will be 63 in April....what we would like to do is come for a visit, maybe if possible meet with some other expats or a couple and have lunch or dinner and ask a few questions. We will have close to $5000.00 a month to live on (retirement, social security, 401k, veteran's retirement etc) We currently live in San Diego CA and just don't see anyway to retire and live comfortably.  We both love the beach but are open to other areas. We need a place with good health care, but really our needs are simple. We don't need a fancy place to live, just something to rent with a couple bedrooms,  Not in Panama City. Open to suggestions..any help or information we can gather. Thanks in advance 

Hi everyone, been gone for a few days so just now getting back to the forum.

Aunt Flo,  We are looking at other places besides Panama. We have traveled to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Belize. Last year we went to Figi and also the Dominican Republic.
We're not really looking to live in a gated community but running water would be nice. A washer/dryer would be a nice perk but hey I don't have one now.   I don't mind using a clothesline.  The health coverage/insurance/doctors/hospitals is a concern for us since my husband has had 2 heart attacks. He's doing very well and is taking care of himself but I just want to make sure I can get him to a hospital if I need to. I like your suggestion of visiting the clinics/hospitals.

Although we both love the beach (living in San Diego we are at the beach nearly every day during the off-tourist season) but living in the highlands is not out of the question. The trip we are planning in September will only be 2 weeks as he has to get back to work. We will rent a car and try to see as much as possible. Just to see if we get that "feeling" that yes this could be home.  We will want to travel back to the U.S. a couple times a year to check on my dad, and see our kids and grandkids.

Someone on another expat board told us to stay away from Colon? Others have told us to skip the beach communities altogether because they are so full of expats that its becoming very expensive.  Others have said that's not true... its very confusing.

We aren't interested in buying, renting is just fine. We won't be bringing our furniture with us so a furnished place would be even better, but we can buy what we need.

Would we need to open a bank account in Panama? I'm thinking that to pay rent/utilities and buy groceries we probably would need a bank account there but could still leave the bulk of our income in the U.S.?  Also how do you receive mail? Through a mail boxes etc or something similar to that? Only a guess but I'm thinking mail delivery might be sketchy at best.

Well now we understand your need for good medical care.  You will have to visit the hospitals for sure and then feel comfortable in them. 

Have you investigated sites that deal with medical tourism or contacted the medical tourism certification board http://www.medicaltourismassociation.com/en/index.html - to get a recommendation from them about the best places for you to get medical care outside of the US for your specific want?  It's just a suggestion.

There are also medical advocates who work with you and deal with the hospitals.  Most of them are medical professionals or even medical pharmacists who can talk to a hospital on your behalf to make things easier on your.  I do know someone who does this in case you want to chat with her about what you might want to look for in a foreign medical facility.  Just some thoughts.  Medical tourism is growing by major leaps and bounds and certain foreign countries are becoming known as the places to go for certain specialities. It's just not my area of specialty so I would defer to an expert.

I agree with staying away from Colon.  It is not a particulary safe place and there has been some recent violence in the Pacific Beach areas of Panama that needs to be addressed.  (If you want to see that information let me know and I'll send it to you).  Pedasi has done a lot of building lately but the places are not selling and what's not sitting well with the locals is that the new places being built on the beach are no longer allowing the locals to use the beach's.  In the long run that is not going to go over well.

You do not need to open a bank account in Panama to live there. PC is the banking capital of Latin America.  Almost every bank in the world is situated in Panama.  We just remove the amount of money we want to take out every month instead of converting all the money over to balboas.  Even though the ATM's are going to dispence the american dollar they will charge you a fee to convert your money from the dollar to the balboa.  So we don't see the value in converting the money.

There is no mail delivery in Panama.  Everyone goes to the post office of their neighborhood and signs up to receive mail and you are given a box number after you tell the post master where you live.  There are mailboxes, etc. all over the place and its a convenient way to receive things from the US but you pay by the weight of the item received.  And you pay for everything.  We asked people to please not send us anything if at all possible because we had to pay for it when it arrived.  I'd rather spend my time on skype instead of receiving packages.  And when family or friends come to visit thats the time to have them bring whatever it is you want.  In my opinion.

HTH.

SanDiegoLady wrote:

Hi everyone, been gone for a few days so just now getting back to the forum.

Aunt Flo,  We are looking at other places besides Panama. We have traveled to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Belize. Last year we went to Figi and also the Dominican Republic.
We're not really looking to live in a gated community but running water would be nice. A washer/dryer would be a nice perk but hey I don't have one now.   I don't mind using a clothesline.  The health coverage/insurance/doctors/hospitals is a concern for us since my husband has had 2 heart attacks. He's doing very well and is taking care of himself but I just want to make sure I can get him to a hospital if I need to. I like your suggestion of visiting the clinics/hospitals.

Although we both love the beach (living in San Diego we are at the beach nearly every day during the off-tourist season) but living in the highlands is not out of the question. The trip we are planning in September will only be 2 weeks as he has to get back to work. We will rent a car and try to see as much as possible. Just to see if we get that "feeling" that yes this could be home.  We will want to travel back to the U.S. a couple times a year to check on my dad, and see our kids and grandkids.

Someone on another expat board told us to stay away from Colon? Others have told us to skip the beach communities altogether because they are so full of expats that its becoming very expensive.  Others have said that's not true... its very confusing.

We aren't interested in buying, renting is just fine. We won't be bringing our furniture with us so a furnished place would be even better, but we can buy what we need.

Would we need to open a bank account in Panama? I'm thinking that to pay rent/utilities and buy groceries we probably would need a bank account there but could still leave the bulk of our income in the U.S.?  Also how do you receive mail? Through a mail boxes etc or something similar to that? Only a guess but I'm thinking mail delivery might be sketchy at best.

As far as bank accounts go I'd open an account in a good credit union and let them know you'll be in a foreign country and expect withdrawals from said country. My credit union doesn't charge any withdrawal fees anywhere in the world but they need to be told you're in a foreign country so they don't decline the transaction. Was in Panama last year and couldn't open an account being from the US without a long wait time. Luckily my wife is Panamanian so she had to open an account in her name and then add me in about 1-2 weeks time. Then we wired money into our account in the Panamanian bank which is fine but there was a big charge for doing it that way. The credit union charged a bunch to send it then the Panamanian bank charged a bunch to receive it. We're going back at the end of April or early May and just going to withdraw with my visa card and deposit into the Panamanian bank or just keep most of it in cash I guess that way there isn't any charges. Gonna do it that way unless someone tells me a better and cheaper way.