Medical tourism 101: Outsourcing your health care

Medical tourism, the practice of traveling abroad for medical care, is growing at an astonishing rate. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that in 2006, half a million Americans traveled abroad for health care. According to the Deloitte Survey of Health Care Consumers, the number rose to 750,000 in 2007; the report projects that the figure will increase to 6 million by 2010.

The motivation is simple. Traveling halfway around the world for medical care has one enormous advantage, at least for U.S. citizens: you save money--often tens of thousands of dollars. And if you choose wisely, the quality can be as high as the best care you’d get in the U.S.

People travel abroad for root canals, routine dental work, face lifts, hysterectomies, joint replacement, and bypass surgery, to name just a few of the more common procedures. Some of those heading overseas are among the nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. Some have insurance that doesn’t cover what they need or have a deductible or co-payment so high it’s cheaper to pay out of pocket in another country. A small minority of the people going abroad are sent by their own insurance companies.

Recently, the nation's largest health insurer, WellPoint, began a pilot program with Serigraph, a graphics company with operations in Wisconsin, Mexico and Asia. U.S. employees of Serigraph can opt to travel to India to have non-emergency surgery. WellPoint says the cost of care is about 80% lower in India, largely because of dramatically lower charges for labor, drugs and medical devices. WellPoint is partnering in India with Apollo Hospitals, a consortium of 47 medical facilities.

Just how much can you save by outsourcing your own medical care? Recent figures from the CDC: spinal fusion surgery in India costs $5,500, compared to over $60,000 in the U.S.; a heart bypass in Thailand costs $11,000, compared to as much as $130,000 in the U.S. A report last year in Business Week echoed the CDC’s figures for heart bypass operations in Thailand and the U.S., adding that in Singapore that operation would cost $18,500 and in India $10,000.