Operation Getaway
CDC
Where will you be going for your summer vacation? With schools out and businesses humming along with less than full rosters, most Americans are taking to the beach, visiting theme parks, attending destination weddings or planning trips to see relatives this summer.
But for an estimated 750,000 Americans this year, the next getaway won’t be used to spend time relaxing, but rather to save money on health care, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the latest Milliman Medical Index, which analyzes Americans’ health-care spending, the typical family of four covered by an average employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) spends $24,671 on health care. The CDC pegs the total cost of health-care spending annually at $2.9 trillion. In order to save money on their health-care costs, Americans are looking abroad for cheaper, but no less effective, treatment options.
Medical tourism certainly comes with potential risks, but many patients would not otherwise be able to afford critical or even elective procedures. Medical tourists are traveling for everything from the most basic outpatient procedures to much more complicated surgeries requiring weeks of recovery.
source: http://www.news.discovery.com / Home> D News> Human / by Talal Al-Khatib / June 30th, 2015
