What is Medical Tourism And Why Are People Doing it?

Choosing to Travel For Better Healthcare Experience

Medical tourism is choosing to travel outside your local area for medical services.

The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions recently published that approximately half a million Americans travel abroad for health care every year.

Why People Travel

It turns out that the US medical industry is terribly overpriced.  There is a booming market of people who choose to travel abroad for high cost procedures.  People travel from around the world from and to locations such as India, Mexico, Costa Rica, China, and the US to find the best medical services for their needs.

Three Primary Reasons to Travel For Medical Care

There are many reasons to travel abroad for medical care.  The three primary reasons are cost, quality of care, and availability of care.

Medical care costs in the United States are astronomical.  The costs create a heavy burden for those of us with health insurance, but they can bankrupt a person without.   A 2008 Census Bureau report showed that 15% of Americans had no health insurance coverage at all.  45 percent of Americans have no dental coverage.

Cost Savings

Shopping in a global market for medical providers can produce significant savings.  In some cases, the costs can be as little as 10% of what you would pay in the U.S.  Here are some examples:

Hip Replacement:  US: $45,000 – 92,000 – In India = $9,000

Gastric Bypass Surgery: US: $32,000 – In Costa Rica = $12,000

Dental bridge in the US about $2,500 – In Mexico = $250.

Quality of Care

You might think that you have to compromise quality of care for these cost savings.  Of course, you need to do your research on your provider.  But, in fact this is something we should probably be doing for our providers here at home as well.

There are international bodies such as JCI, patients beyond borders, and ISO that provide certification of medical facilities and providers.  The American Medical Association has also recently release guidelines for use of medical tourism

Often we find that medical facilities catering to the medical tourism trade take great care to achieve the highest levels of quality.  I read account after account of people who were more than satisfied with their level of service.  Reputation is everything to a clinic trying to attract foreigners for medical procedures.  The top facilities are well aware of this.

Availability of Care

A third incentive for medical tourism is available care.  I read a firsthand account from a Parkinson’s patient who was nearly wheel chair bound.  He had watched his father die a slow and painful death in a wheelchair from the same disease.

After some research he found a clinic in Mexico providing Stem Cell therapy.  After only three weeks of treatment, he was walking upright and without a cane again.  This same therapy was not available in the US.

Medical Tourism is becoming a surprisingly popular alternative to local medicine.  The extremely high cost of modern medicine has brought an economy of scale to the industry.  With procedures costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the U.S., the cost and burden of travel can easily be offset for many situations.

Global leaders in the industry have taken notice and built world-class facilities with world-class doctors to take advantage of the market, bringing back a sense of customer service to medicine with it.  The ability to shop this global market allows consumers to make personal choices about the treatments that are best for them and fit their needs.

Medical Tourism is never going to replace our local family practice doctor doing regular exams, or the care of our nearby emergency room.  But for high cost, non-emergent treatments, medical tourism is one more way that our world is getting a little bit smaller.

– Tim Nichols for Traveling4Health.  View video on Youtube.