Medical Tourism
It's not just prescriptions. People are going overseas for elective surgery and getting really great deals and service. Here is an
article from CBS News which explores this:
Vacation, Adventure And Surgery?
Summertime. It’s almost upon us. Millions will be heading out to foreign lands for vacation, adventure, tourism, or just a beautiful beach. But how about hip surgery or a multiple bypass or a facelift?
A growing number of tourists are doing just that: combining holidays with health care. And that’s because a growing number of countries are offering first-rate medical care at third-world prices.
Many of these medical tourists can’t afford health care at home; the 40 million uninsured Americans, for example. Others are going for procedures not covered by their insurance: cosmetic surgery, infertility treatment.
They take a look at a Thai Hospital and a patient who needed bypass surgery:
One patient is Byron Bonnewell, who lives 12,000 miles away in Shreveport, La., where he owns and runs a campground for RVs. A year and a half ago, he had a heart attack, and his doctor told him he really needed bypass surgery.
"They told me I was gonna die," says Bonnewell, who didn't have insurance.
He estimates he would have had to pay over $100,000 out of his own pocket for the operation he needed, a complicated quintuple bypass. And he says he actually decided not to do it: "I guess I figured I'd rather die with a little bit of money in my pocket than live poor."
But Bonnewell says his health was deteriorating quickly, when he read about Bumrungrad Hospital: "I was in my doctor's office one day having some tests done, and there was a copy of Business Week magazine there. And there was an article in Business Week magazine about Bumrungrad Hospital. And I came home and went on the Internet and made an appointment, and away I went to Thailand."
He made that appointment after he learned that the bypass would cost him about $12,000. He chose his cardiologist, Dr. Chad Wanishawad, after reading on the hospital’s Web site that he used to practice at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.
And the quality of care:
How does he feel? "Wonderful. I wish I’d found them sooner," says Bonnewell. "Because I went through a year – I was in bad shape. I couldn’t walk across the room."
How was the nursing? How was the treatment?
"I found it so strange in Thailand, because they were all registered nurses. Being in a hospital in the United States, we see all kinds of orderlies, all kinds of aides, maybe one RN on duty on the whole floor of the hospital," says Bonnewell. "In Thailand, I bet I had eight RNs just on my section of the floor alone. First-class care."
That’s what the hospital prides itself on: its first-class medical care, which it can offer so cheaply because everything is cheaper here, particularly labor and malpractice insurance. You can get just about any kind of treatment, from chemotherapy to plastic surgery.
A classic case of supply and demand.
Posted by DaveH at April 27, 2005 10:02 AM