The word tourism may conjure up visions of visiting romantic foreign cities, lounging on warm beaches and enjoying a relaxing vacation.
What’s not normally in the picture is joint replacement surgery, dental work or a cardiac bypass. But those types of activities are exactly what a specific traveler — the medical tourist — is after.
As health care becomes more expensive in the United States and as the ranks of the uninsured grow, Americans without insurance are looking for more cost-effective ways to get medical care. Companies have sprouted up to act as medical travel agents, hooking you up with physicians and hospitals in other countries in order to get a specific medical procedure.
As an added bonus, you can throw a brief vacation in for the recovery. If you were paying out of pocket for the procedure anyway, you could probably do it all more cheaply than at home.
This may sound risky to some, but many foreign facilities and physicians rival the U.S. for quality and safety. More than a few of us have already made a habit of taking trips to Mexico for dental and cosmetic procedures not covered by insurance, and insurance companies are taking note.
They’re starting to realize that the cost of encouraging medical tourism for their subscribers may be less than paying for procedures here. Self-insured businesses also offer this to employees, with one supermarket chain previously paying for an employee and companion to travel to Singapore for a joint replacement.
Insurers are looking at the costly services they cover and realize that if they can save $5,000 on a procedure with better outcomes and fewer complications, then it makes sense to pay for a plane trip and a short hotel stay in order to use that facility.
So where will this head?
Obviously, it makes sense if there is a price differential for the service. But as in the case of organ transplants, it also makes sense if the outcomes at a preferred location are so good that there are fewer costly complications over time, making upfront costs the same but ongoing costs less. It encourages facilities providing these services to be top-notch and prove it with data, ultimately making the entire system more transparent.
This will trickle down to even lower-cost services as facilities in one state compete with those in others and will improve cost containment and patient outcomes — things which benefit us all.
So how about seeing scenic New Zealand and getting a new hip on the side? It’s more of a reality than you think.
Dr. Ted Norman is an internist with Banner Medical Group and can be reached at edward.
source: http://www.coloradoan.com /Home> Business / by Ted Norman, On Health Care / January 09th, 2013
