Uptime Electronics Inc., a Whittier-based equipment repair company, recently began offering its 20 employees the option of going abroad for care. The company has contracted with Planet Hospital, a Calabasas medical travel coordinator that has relationships with providers in 13 countries.
Large self-insured companies are doing the same. Hannaford Supermarkets, a Maine-based grocery chain, has given its 9,000 insured employees the choice of having knee and hip replacements at National University Hospital in Singapore, where such procedures can cost a third of what they do in the United States. Hannaford waives all deductibles and covers travel expenses for the patient and a companion.
Other employers are offering workers cash incentives as high as $10,000 on top of free medical care and travel. It's not hard to see why. Heart bypass surgery that can cost more than $100,000 in the U.S. is generally less than $10,000 in India's finest hospitals, whose success rates rival those found in the U.S. and Europe, according to Josef Woodman, author of "Patients Beyond Borders," a popular guide to medical travel.
So if healthcare in other countries is so good, why is it so cheap?
Experts point to a variety of factors. Doctors' salaries and the cost of living are lower in many countries. Government-funded healthcare in some nations helps contain costs in private-sector hospitals, which don't have to shoulder the unpaid bills of uninsured patients as U.S. hospitals do. In addition, malpractice insurance is cheaper and litigation awards are significantly smaller in most parts of the world.
That lighter liability burden is one reason hospitals in New Zealand can perform procedures such as hip and knee replacements for less than half the price some U.S. facilities charge. The Pacific island nation is wooing American patients by promoting its First World living standards and common language.
"We don't have a tort system . . . [that's] like winning the lottery," said Steve Nichols, managing director of Medtral New Zealand, a medical travel company. "That reflects in the price."
It's also something consumers need to bear in mind in the event that something goes wrong. U.S. patients who believe they have been harmed can sue the foreign doctor or hospital -- but only in that nation's courts.
