The Great 'Medical Tourism' Hunt

With acknowledgement to the Economist have a look at this excellent recent article on the subject. Subscriptions available at Economist.com


Medical tourism
Sun, sand and scalpels

Mar 8th 2007 | BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition
Soaring health-care costs in the rich world offer Asian firms an opportunity

AMERICA'S soaring health-care costs, already $2 trillion a year, are predicted to double in the coming decade. Dissatisfaction with the rocketing price of care will only get worse as demanding and health-conscious “baby-boomers” hit retirement and start to suffer the costly ailments of old age.

In countries like Britain and Canada, with supposedly universal coverage, state spending is not keeping up with growing demand, so patients face long and agonising waits for operations. And in the prosperous bits of Asia and the Middle East growing numbers of people are rich enough to demand high-quality medical care that they cannot get locally.

All this presents a fantastic business opportunity for those Asian countries, principally Thailand, Singapore and India, which have excellent private hospitals that are used to treating foreigners and where costs are a fraction of those in rich countries. “Medical tourism” is booming as patients look abroad for cheap, fast treatment, often combined with a holiday afterwards. Josef Woodman, the author of “Patients Beyond Borders”, a new guide for those seeking surgery abroad, reckons that 150,000 Americans did so last year, and predicts the numbers will double this year.

Booming demand is encouraging rapid expansion at big stockmarket-listed hospital operators such as Thailand's Bumrungrad and Bangkok Dusit, Singapore's Parkway and Pacific Healthcare and India's Apollo Hospitals. This week Pacific Healthcare said it would build seven medical centres across Asia. Bumrungrad, which treated 430,000 non-Thais last year, has just expanded its Bangkok hospital and is setting up in the Philippines and Dubai.

Singapore is more expensive than Thailand, but still far cheaper than America. Goh Jin Hian, the head of Parkway's Gleneagles Hospital, says Singapore should try to compete for the most complex treatments, leaving cosmetic surgery and other price-sensitive operations to lower-cost rivals such as Thailand. Nevertheless, like the Thai hospital operators, he is sure the medical-travel boom will provide plenty of foreign patients for them all.

Mr Woodman reckons that today's boom is just the start. So far, most medical tourists pay their own way. But the Asian hospital operators are now courting American health insurers and employers desperate to rein in soaring costs. Bumrungrad's marketing chief, Ruben Toral, who was in America this week for talks with insurers and big employers, says they were very keen. BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina already offers Bumrungrad's cut-price treatments to members whose policies do not cover the surgery they need.

To reassure foreign patients, many hospitals are seeking accreditation from the Joint Commission International (JCI), the international arm of the body that accredits American hospitals. Thailand's Bumrungrad and nine Singaporean hospitals already have JCI certificates. Raymond Chong, the boss of Bangkok Dusit's Samitivej Hospital, reckons it will be only a year or two before big American insurers and employers routinely offer patients lower premiums if they are prepared to travel to a foreign JCI-accredited hospital for surgery.

For patients, employers and insurers the benefits are clear. But the hospital operators are bracing themselves for a backlash from the rich countries' medical vested interests whose jobs are, in effect, being outsourced. Expect much shroud-waving from doctors' associations and health-care unions as they highlight the few cases of foreign surgery that go wrong—as though such a thing never happens back home.

Anyone else a little dubious about the recomendations on here from people who've never posted before and/or only joined today?? :rolleyes:

But I am interested in dental implants in hungary so if anyone else who doesn't have a vested interest (not suggesting those who have mentioned it fall into the above catergory) wants to share their expierience be good to here how you got on.;)

always said use american or brit hospitals abroad because you can usually be sure that they arent buying copy drugs but are buying from the pharmaceutical companies

my wife is polish so when ever we visit her parents we go to the dentist. lucky for me i have not had to have any work done, but would not hesitate to go there to have it done.

I have literally just returned this week from Budapest after having extensive dental work carried out which included 3 bridges, 4 veneers toth whitening, and bonded fillings for £3K I was quoted over here in the UK £385 just for one crown as there are no NHS dentists in our area available. I went to "The Implant Centre" in Budapest (https://www.implantcentre.hu) I was met at the airport, £80 return Easyjet Luton- but Ryan Air will start from nottingham in October) driven to my arptment(£150 for the week and brand new) which they had arranged for me, was collected and returned each and everyday, the clinic had specialist Dr's for various aspects of Dentistry , Maxiofacial surgeons, Implant specialists etc and even a Smile designer, all spoke perfect english, the treatment was A1 the equipment was the best I'd seen and I felt totally at ease and I am a real nervous patient, my treatment was completed within 5 days. It is time these Licensed Bandits posing as Dentists in the UK woke up and smelt the roses and realised they soon wont have a industry, if they dont stop ripping people off 3K in budapest compared to £14K in the UK do the sums it's a no brainer!!!!!