Thailand is on the net? Employers and insurers embrace medical tourism
As 47 million other Americans, Nancy Sowa has no health insurance. So when her doctors told her last year he needed a hip replacement, the office manager of a nonprofit organization did what a growing number of citizens of the United States: It walked abroad. Wockhardt Hospital in Bangalore, India, 56, was released from the hospital, “private” much smarter than that normally found in the United States, with a computer, refrigerator, cable TV, living room and a bed for your pet.
Specifically, the two-hour surgery in July by an orthopedic surgeon trained in the United States and Australia, was a success. Four months later, a resident of Durham, North Carolina feel like your old self again, taking long walks and planning their next vacation. The last tab of the proceedings, including rehabilitation therapy and plane tickets back and forth for two? , 000. It is a fraction of the, 000, 000, he was told the surgery would cost at home.
“I would not have been able to perform surgery in the United States,” Sowa said. “I did not have to consider taking a second mortgage or exploitation members of the family because I had that option. “
With Americans able to save 50% to 90% by going to places like India, Thailand and Costa Rica , the uninsured are not the only ones to consider the option of medical tourism. Increasingly, U.S. employers facing rising health care costs will increase by 9% in 2010, sending their employees abroad for treatment. Many companies are exploring the possibility of small businesses that are self-financing – which means he is responsible for paying their own health care demands
insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield are. into the act, too. For good reason: Even when employers or insurers waive co-payments and deductibles and throw in airfare and pocket money for the patient and a companion – some of the typical incentives offered to employees who have medical procedures carried out abroad – you can always save, 000, 000 or 000 by the
not only for the face and abdomen Ski Tucks
“The main factor is the reduction of costs,” said David Boucher, Companion Global Healthcare is the leading company launched by Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina in 2007 to offer medical tourism plans for employers. “But when members return, they also tend to say very good things about his experience.” In the past, medical tourism was mainly attributable to the spa-rich Brazil and South Africa for a facelift and tummy tuck. More recently, however, the middle class and uninsured have also boarded planes for elective surgery could not afford />
travel as part of their health plans, the number could explode.
For now, the number of U.S. employers they are countries such as Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok “on the network” is still weak. Renee-Marie Stephano, president of the Association of Medical Tourism in West Palm Beach, Fla., estimates that the number of employers that offer options for treatment abroad is less than 10%. And nearly 350 companies have signed Companion Global Healthcare through its subsidiaries, more than 30 employees to date have travel health abroad, said Boucher, who is based in Columbia, SC
“We’re very happy where we are,” Boucher said. “It is clear from the figures that employers are not simply jump into the deep pool. They take the right approach, it measure. ”
return abroad Spurs />
In addition to questions about the quality of care and legal recourse, other concerns have been raised. Among them, with flights abroad signs of care, employers discourage their employees from seeking treatment in the United States by increasing deductibles and other methods? And what follow-up care will be like coming home, especially if there are complications after surgery abroad?
“If you look at the American College of Surgeons, who are reluctant to have to take after other medical errors, and especially not in this country,” said Judy Dugan, Director research with the Santa Monica, California based consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.
Dugan accepts the cost of medical care is to hand the United States, but she said that industry officials and politicians should seek other forms of medical tourism to reduce it. “If globalization is increasingly important in the American doctor who will probably lose their jobs either in the country, from top to bottom, the surgeon at the person who makes his bed, he said. “You really want to get to the bottom in wages abroad, rather than seeking to contain costs in the U.S.?”
Plane Tips Everyone
Most employers of medical tourism facilitator, which usually handle travel arrangements and medical care for their employees. Despite the persistence of stereotypes of hospitals in developing countries that facilities miserable invaded by deadly disease, many say that these devices offer advanced care really less than what many hospitals offer U.S. Leaders say they work only with hospitals accredited by the world recognized accrediting agencies, such as Oakbrook, Illinois-based Joint Commission International.
“There are high-quality hospitals worldwide, not only in the U.S.,” said Tom O’Hara, president of Travel Tourism Facilitator Medical and Surgical, based in Boca Raton, Florida
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