Is Medical Tourism Right for You?
With health care costs rising and disposable incomes shrinking, many patients are turning to medical tourism as a means of getting the best value for their health care dollars. If you need a prescription or a procedure that costs less in a neighboring country, medical tourism may be a way to get the care you need.
Medical Tourism: The Early Days
Medical tourism is a term used to describe the practice of leaving your local area to obtain health care. Patients have been doing this for years within the domestic boundaries of the United States, leaving their home state to attend a world-renowned facility like The Mayo Clinic, for instance.
Spa travel can also be considered an early form of medical tourism. Although spa treatments are not technically medical care, travelers have been going to other countries for years to stay in spas devoted to relaxation and weight loss treatments.
Medical Tourism Today
Today, news media and health care activists use the term medical tourism exclusively to describe the practice of traveling internationally to obtain medical services. Patients leave their home countries for a variety of reasons, including speed and cost of care.
Patients who live in countries with socialized medicine, like Canada and England, may find themselves on a long waiting list for a procedure that is readily available in the United States or Germany. If travel is affordable, medical tourism enables the patient to go to another country, have the medical procedure there, perhaps do some sightseeing during recovery, and return to the patient's home country, good as new.
Besides solving the patient's medical problem quickly, having surgery abroad also frees up the traveling patient's place in line in the socialist health care system so that other patients can be seen more quickly.
Many Latin American countries are destinations for medical care. California residents seek out Mexican dentists, who reportedly charge one-fifth the cost of a dentist in California. Similarly, Californians cross the Mexican border to obtain laser eye surgery, liposuction and cosmetic surgery, and joint replacement surgery.
Potential Disadvantages of Medical Tourism
Laws vary from country to country about liability for surgical mistakes. Some patients who experience problems when obtaining procedures in foreign countries report that the medical provider's legal system may protect the provider from litigation brought by a foreign patient.
Patients who decide to use medical tourism as a health care option should consult an international attorney to discuss any questions and concerns. Under the right circumstances, medical tourism is an intriguing and useful solution to some patients' medical problems.
