3 ms·

"One of the things that drives treatment costs up is more advanced technology." It's not so much the technology as it is the setting in which the technology is

"One of the things that drives treatment costs up is more advanced technology." It's not so much the technology as it is the setting in which the technology is deployed. Compare US costs to costs for the same procedures and technology in top medical tourism destinations. Quality of care and outcomes are much better at a fraction of US costs. It's the big morass of stuff around the US health care environment that adds big multiples to the cost of deploying new technology.

majormajor 9y ago
This is part of where I don't know where to find the numbers I want to find. :) Are one-off procedures amenable to medical-tourism destinations a major part of US total healthcare costs? Or is it expensive, often-for-rest-of-life, prescriptions and treatment courses for certain conditions? Or just the simple requirements of keeping an ever-larger/ever-older aging population alive through falls/heart attacks/kidney failures/whatever? Pointers to the data would be appreciated, here. :) Or numbers around research budgets: what does the international research profile around, say, lab-grown replacement organs look like compared to the in-US one? What I have found so far is that even within the US, quality of care and outcomes vary wildly (doctors and nurses are only human, too, after all) and you can generally figure out where you should go for what condition, but it's not very easy. And it's problematic at a certain point to say that it should be easier: the best 10% of practicioners for a certain condition likely can't see 100% of the patient load. How do you decide who gets the crappy doctors? (International medical tourism is a slightly different can of worms, but one I understand less because my experience is that most health coverage doesn't give you much internationally, so domestic medical tourism seems much more attractive.)
- geomark 9y ago
  Those are some good questions. And I don't have pointers to data. You can find plenty of anecdotes about one-off procedures/events that are ruinously expensive in the US but are affordable out-of-pocket cost at medical tourism centers. The question of on-going health care costs would normally be of interest only to expats since most medical tourists plan to go back to their home country after treatment. As an expat I have some anecdotes of my on that subject. In short, they also seem to be a fraction of the cost for better care and service. Full time elder care/nursing home care, for example. When my family researched it in the US it was very expensive and mostly quite depressing conditions. We were able to obtain 24-hour care for about US$1,000 per month in Thailand and the care was quite good. An acquaintance mentioned comparative cost of dialysis - about US$10,000 per year at a Thai private hospital versus US$90,000 in the US (assuming you paid the actual cost). One thing that remains expensive is any specialty medicines that must come from big pharma in the west, although there are more options for sources and not the racket that people experience in the US - think of meds from Canada for example.

majormajor 9y ago

This is part of where I don't know where to find the numbers I want to find. :) Are one-off procedures amenable to medical-tourism destinations a major part of US total healthcare costs? Or is it expensive, often-for-rest-of-life, prescriptions and treatment courses for certain conditions? Or just the simple requirements of keeping an ever-larger/ever-older aging population alive through falls/heart attacks/kidney failures/whatever? Pointers to the data would be appreciated, here. :) Or numbers around research budgets: what does the international research profile around, say, lab-grown replacement organs look like compared to the in-US one? What I have found so far is that even within the US, quality of care and outcomes vary wildly (doctors and nurses are only human, too, after all) and you can generally figure out where you should go for what condition, but it's not very easy. And it's problematic at a certain point to say that it should be easier: the best 10% of practicioners for a certain condition likely can't see 100% of the patient load. How do you decide who gets the crappy doctors? (International medical tourism is a slightly different can of worms, but one I understand less because my experience is that most health coverage doesn't give you much internationally, so domestic medical tourism seems much more attractive.)

geomark 9y ago
Those are some good questions. And I don't have pointers to data. You can find plenty of anecdotes about one-off procedures/events that are ruinously expensive in the US but are affordable out-of-pocket cost at medical tourism centers. The question of on-going health care costs would normally be of interest only to expats since most medical tourists plan to go back to their home country after treatment. As an expat I have some anecdotes of my on that subject. In short, they also seem to be a fraction of the cost for better care and service. Full time elder care/nursing home care, for example. When my family researched it in the US it was very expensive and mostly quite depressing conditions. We were able to obtain 24-hour care for about US$1,000 per month in Thailand and the care was quite good. An acquaintance mentioned comparative cost of dialysis - about US$10,000 per year at a Thai private hospital versus US$90,000 in the US (assuming you paid the actual cost). One thing that remains expensive is any specialty medicines that must come from big pharma in the west, although there are more options for sources and not the racket that people experience in the US - think of meds from Canada for example.