Ticket to treatment

Few people are likely to go through that kind of hassle, especially for a meager award. Texas resident Maggie Terry is still wearing the bandage from a $4,500 tummy tuck she got this spring at a small hospital in northern Mexico. The incision got severely infected and has yet to heal. Terry figures she'll spend thousands more dollars with a U.S. plastic surgeon to repair damaged tissue.

"I wish I had never done it," the 26-year-old said of her "bargain" surgery.

In Monterrey, officials at Christus know they have a long way to go to overcome Americans' concerns about Mexico's medical facilities, as well as stereotypes about the culture. This modern industrial city is home to some of Mexico's leading companies and some of its wealthiest entrepreneurs. Familiar U.S. chains such as Starbucks and Chili's abound.

Yet "Americans ask if we have cows and horses in the streets," said Julio Cesar Lopez Dominguez, medical travel sales manager for Christus' six Mexican hospitals, known collectively as Grupo Christus Muguerza.

To build consumer confidence, the company has obtained Joint Commission International accreditation for its High Specialty Hospital in Monterrey and has begun the process for its South General Hospital across town. An English-language website allows visitors to take a virtual tour of its facilities and read testimonials from American clients. Many come for laparoscopic obesity surgery, which at $9,000 is less than half the price charged by some U.S. hospitals.

While Christus' medical travel business is still in its infancy -- it treated just 200 international patients last year -- it's looking to grow that segment into one-third of its business within a decade.

How American doctors and hospitals respond to foreigners poaching their patients remains to be seen. Medical travel deprived domestic medical providers of about $16 billion in spending in 2007, according to Deloitte. That's chump change in a $2.4-trillion healthcare system.

Some analysts believe that, at most, medical travel could shave a few percentage points off the overall healthcare tab for a typical self-insured company. That's because a lot of the spending is for routine procedures that will never go offshore.

Still, a few thousand dollars here and there add up to real savings for any company. Deloitte figures that medical travelers will deprive U.S. providers of $373 billion in annual spending within a decade. Most of that will come from high-margin elective surgeries, which U.S. hospitals depend on for a good share of their profits.