HealthAbroad.net: Point of View

With the medical tourism industry estimated to be worth $188 billion by 2013, Philippines is eager to levearage its cost effectiveness for medical surgery along with tourism potential to tap into the pie. A somewhat late entrant into the race, it faces stiff competition from other Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and India who have already stolen a march over it.

Coronary bypass surgery that costs an average of $50,000 in the US, costs between $10,000-25,000 in the Philippines. Lasik eye surgery which costs $3000 in the US comes for $1000 in the Philippines and breast augmentation costs $2000 while the same costs approximately $5,000 in the US.

Although larger hospitals are logging into medical tourism and modernizing their equipment and facilities, Philippines has a fair distance to cover and sort out the structural weaknesses of the health industry. Another problem is the growing flight of well qualified medical professionals to the West and the Middle East. Unless medical professionals see any value for themselves in staying back and having a good quality of life in the Philippines, brain drain will be irreversible and detrimental to the planned growth in medical tourism.  

Michael Moore is at it again, for better or for worse. Sicko, his new flick on the state of the American healthcare system is creating quite a media buzz at Cannes. Knowing that he is a bit of a rabble rouser and enjoys getting under the skin of his detractors, this new production is surely going to start a fiery debate. So put on the warpaint and please don’t bring a knife to a gun fight!

Under its “Comment is Free” section, The Guardian carries an interesting piece on his film. The views expressed are solely of the writers and we do not subscribe to or reject them. This is only an FYI.

A few numbers from the article-

1. 50 million Americans have no healthcover
2. 250 million American who do have healthcover are denied treatment when they need it.

I personally can’t wait to see the film. Watch the official trailer here.

An interview with Dr. Jason Yap on how and why Singapore is promoting medical tourism in a big way. Dr. Yap is the Director of Information Services of the Singapore Medicine section of the Singapore Tourism Board.

A few things to point out from the interview:

• in 2006, more than 400,000 patients came to Singapore with a majority from neighboring South East Asian countries and others from the Middle East, North America and Europe.

• Patients are seeking out Singapore for high end, complex and research driven elective surgeries such as pediatric luekemia, bone marrow transplants, cancer treatments in addition to the usual knee and hip replacements.

• Singapore is marginally more expensive than India but also benefits from having better infrastructure. A knee replacement which costs around $40,000 in the US, costs around $9000 in Singapore and around $6,000 in India.

p.s- Very informative blog as well.

A study released yesterday has found that American hospitals are charging uninsured patients as much as two and a half times more than those with health insurance. The American Hospital Association (AHA), which represents the country’s 5,000 or so hospitals in its rebuttal said that the report was out of date and methodogically flawed.

So how are rates fixed in American hospitals?

Hospitals set rates based on a list called the chargemaster, which is generally believed to inflate prices substantially, in the belief that prices will come down during a negotiation process.

But patients without health insurance, about 45 million of them in the US, lack the ability to negotiate and with hospitals only meant to earn 10 cents on every dollar charged to uninsured patients, they have to bear the economic burden of medicare.

The study is authored by Gerard Anderson, Director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health.

By crossing the border, Texans are cutting medical costs by half.

The presence of well trained doctors, modern facilities, state-of-the-art equipment has meant that regardless of what side of the border one is on, an equivalent quality of medicare is available at a lower cost on the Mexican side. Lasik eye surgery which costs nearly $4000 in Texas, costs $1200 in Monterrey in Mexico. Generally speaking medicare prices are in Mexico are a third of those in the US.

Due to its proximity and low prices, Mexico is among the top destinations for medical tourism among American patients.

With Western heathcare systems urgently needing to reinvent themselves as medical tourism booms, a German internet start-up is offering e-auctions for medical treatment.

The e-auction site offers a competitive platform for the service seekers and providers.

It is up to the patients to chose an offer from those submitted by the participating doctors. Savings between the original quote received by the patient and the lowest on-line offer is usually around 50%.  

Nice article in the International Herald Tribune on the mushrooming of low cost and discount airlines across Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. 

Air travel by being made afforadable and accessible has facilitated the movement of people, ideas and money - all pre-requisites for better business and price competitiveness. It has also forced state run and heaviy subsidized airlines to shake off their complacency, compete and offer better services to their customers or perish. Mediocrity has no takers beyond a point.

So where does medical tourism come in? The article starts off with the story of an American author who was in India last year to research for his book on medical tourism and came away with a favourable impression of the low cost airline(s) he used to crisscross the country.  

The airlines industry and medical tourism are inextricably linked. The former moves people - now at much lower costs to consumer than before, from which the latter benefits greatly. It would perhaps be a bit of a stretch to say that the low-cost airlines have spawned the medical tourism industry but they have helped in its growth in no small measure. Read our previous posts about this relationship here.

More on Argentina being a top destination for cut price good quality plastic surgery.

A breast implant surgery costs $2500 in Argentina whereas it can be three times as much in Los Angeles, Madrid or Paris. A high local demand for plastic surgery also means that the  doctors are well trained and competent. Even today, as much as 60 percent of all procedures are done on Argentinians.

Argentina’s stormed up the list of medical destinations after the peso was devalued in 2001 making travel and surgery a steal.

Read our previous posts on Argentina and plastic surgery here and here and also the one on Brazil.

Like it or not, medical tourism is here to stay. And unless medicare in the West becomes cheaper and more responsive to the needs of the customers the numbers of foreign patients coming to low cost medical tourism destinations will only go up in the future.  

Cost is obviously a big consideration. An open heart surgery that costs upto $150,000 in the US costs about $10,000 in India with flights, in-country transportation and postoperative vacations thrown in. Foreign patients frustrated with long wait times for non-elective surgery are also going abroad for medical treatment.  

Another big plus for low cost medical tourism is a big cost savings on malpractice insurance. While doctors in many medical destinations pay as little as $4,000 a year for malpractice insurance while American doctors can pay 25 times that amount.

The market for medical tourism is hotting up with many countries awakening to the dollars tourism and good healthcare can bring into their economies. The latest entrant is Taiwan, well known for dentistry, cranio-facial surgery, medical checkups and treatment of hepatitis.

The Tainwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also been brought on board and “has agreed to issue medical visas to those seeking medical treatment” in the country.