Medical tourism banking on U.S. health care reform
The medical tourism industry is welcoming President Barack Obama’s new health care reform law with a smile that would make a Botox doctor proud.
As I wrote in yesterday’s column, there are plenty of Americans (including Rush Limbaugh) looking overseas now that the United States is undergoing the most dramatic change ever in the history of its health care system.
“We anticipate medical tourism to increase,” Renee-Marie Stephano, president of the Medical Tourism Association, told the Tico Times. “More people will have access to health insurance (in the United States), but you are going to see an increase in the underinsured.”
Essentially, medical tourism is the practice of traveling beyond your home country’s borders to seek medical care in another nation — usually at a much lower cost. This is especially true for surgeries not typically covered by health insurance, such as cosmetic procedures like facelifts and breast augmentation.
Dozens of countries officially recognize medical tourism as a national industry, and many overseas hospitals offer five-star care, such as Bumrungrad in Bangkok, Thailand.
Michael Quirós, who heads the Medical Tourism Association’s Latin American division, agrees with Stephano that health care reform in the United States will benefit the medical tourism industry.
“Outside of the United States, medical care is less expensive – in some areas, five or six times so,” he told the Tico Times. “Insurance companies and employers recognize the price differential and will encourage patients to seek attention abroad.
“I think the health reform is 100 percent positive for the medical tourism industry.”
Experts estimate that medical tourism is a $20 billion-a-year industry – a figure that’s expected to grow to $100 billion by 2012. There are no figures for the number of Dallas/Fort Worth residents who seek care abroad, but 500,000 to 750,000 Americans travel beyond the USA’s borders each year to seek medical treatment.
source: examiner.com
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