GLOBAL REPORT - Borders are no barrier to affordable healthcare - Exploding medical costs have prompted many Americans to travel to get quality treatment for 30% to 80% off.
When David Woodman announced he was going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for major dental work, his son Josef thought his dad had lost his mind. He had visions of untrained dentists burrowing into his father's mouth, clutching fistfuls of rusty needles.
So the younger Woodman tagged along to make sure his father would not fall victim to foreign quackery. "Instead of what I feared, he got a board-trained dentist in a great clinic, with state-of-the-art instruments and panoramic X-rays," says Woodman, who was so impressed that he ended up researching and writing the book "Patients Beyond Borders" on the phenomenon of medical tourism. "And he saved $11,000 on a mouthful of teeth."
Woodman's father is not alone in looking abroad for a medical overhaul. After all, if the American healthcare system is not completely broken, it is certainly dysfunctional: 47 million people have no health coverage, and 130 million have no dental insurance. As baby boomers age into more medical problems with spotty coverage, and would prefer not to deplete their retirement savings, they are looking at all available options.
Countries such as India, Thailand, Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia and Singapore cater to well-heeled foreigners. In fact about 150,000 Americans a year go abroad to have medical work done and the industry is growing by about 15% to 20% annually. The quality of care in top hospitals is said to beat most American hospitals, while providing savings of 30% to 80%. In fact, in 10 to 15 years, "the best offshore hospitals will routinely be included in networks offered to insured Americans," predicts Arnold Milstein, chief physician for the consulting firm Mercer Health & Benefits.
Not that medical tourism is a worry-free venture. From the training of foreign doctors and the conditions of far-flung facilities, to the legal limbo should something go awry, to the wisdom of getting on long-haul flights after major surgery, there are troubling questions to consider. But when patients are facing a major operation -- a hip replacement, say, that could cost from $55,000 to $85,000 stateside -- it seems that more Americans are proving able to get beyond their doubts.
"Many people just can't afford the procedures here in the U.S. and the value overseas is so much greater," says Patrick Marsek, managing director of Chicago-based MedRetreat, which is facilitating 650 overseas surgeries for clients this year. Although historically most Americans have gone abroad for dental or cosmetic work, he says, it is now extending to other areas -- hip and knee replacements, heart surgery and hysterectomies.
