6 ms·

Toothache anyone? It's time for a vacation

43 points by kirillzubovsky 15y ago

amalag 15y ago
An amazing idea to disrupt this industry. I can see the same thing for medical and vision. Lasik for 25% of the cost sounds nice (but messing with your eyes is a big risk). What are other players in this market?
- read_wharf 15y ago
  Medical tourism, from the States to elsewhere, has been a "thing" for some time, maybe a decade(?). I'm sure it's been done individually by out of the box thinkers well before that. It's great that businesses like in the article are making this a bit more accessible and known, it will put some cost pressure on Stateside providers. Also help people save some money by going outside the States, or even get care that just would not happen otherwise.
eof 15y ago
I am currently in Nicaragua. I am from the USA and don't have health insurance. I had a toothache that was periodically dehabilitating, mostly in high altitudes. Having an irrational fear of the dentist and a rational fear of dental bills, I put it off for longer than I should have, and only last week got my work done in Managua. A root canal, 3 cavities, a half a dozen or so xrays and a teeth cleaning was about $600; and included 3 visits and xanax for 2 of the 3 visits. The last root canal I had in the USA was in 2002, and cost 1100 with insurance. I went to one of the most expensive dentists in Managua because he was recommended highly and spoke perfect english, and I didn't really trust my spanish. Really interesting to wrap this phenomenon in a profitable venture; but I found it easy to get the information myself. I would 100% absolutely do it again.
- dmix 15y ago
  Interesting. How much was the flight + living expenses by comparison?
  - eof 15y ago
    I have been traveling around for a while so I can't comment on flight as I came via bus from Costa Rica. Living expenses are extremely cheap. A nice apt on a short term lease in a nice part of Managua is 300-400 a month. A very nice restaurant is like 7 dollars a person; food on the street is <$2 a meal. For comparison, day labor outside of Managua costs 150 cordoba a day; or about 7 dollars.
rdtsc 15y ago
Can't wait to see the response and the PR campaign launched by American Dental Association (or whatever it is called). "<fade in> <sad marimba music playing> <black and white scene> some guy is on the floor in fetal position, in some dirty antiquated medical office, he is alone, holding his jaw with his hand. Camera slowly zooms out, out of the windows, we see he is in Bangkok. Voice over "thinking of trying dental tourism? Think again!" < fade out >" On a related topic. I've been practicing medical tourism for 15 years now. Had 1 surgery, dental work, regular comprehensive full panel tests and saved lots of money. (I went to Eastern Europe). What can I say. I go and also visit friends and I have connections there to know which doctors are good. Can't imagine just going there without knowing the doctors or knowing the country. Corruption is rampant. Imagine it is the same in Thailand or South America. Once this takes off, there will be lots of opportunity there to prey on American "health" tourists. I would have to really trust the whole chain of connections : company that manages this, people they employ locally, local doctors, nurses.
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  I can't vouch for anywhere else in South America, but private clinics in Brazil are pretty much safe, well equiped and pristine (public healthcare is a whoole different story). We also have leading research in many medical fields, can't imagine Thailand (no disrespect) being anywhere near.
viraptor 15y ago
I completely agree with this. I'm doing a... reverse tourism (?) every year by leaving the UK to visit my family in Europe and get my dental issues fixed there. Saves me a lot of money considering cheap flight tickets are around £50 both ways and a standard filling with local anaesthesia costs the same (in a good quality place)... With local prices of ~£7 per month for basic dental insurance, this is a very simple choice.
_delirium 15y ago
Here's an article from 2003 on (the old) Kuro5hin on the same subject, involving dental tourism to Mexico: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/20/121018/65 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/20/121018/65
- Daniel_Newby 15y ago
  I miss the Kuro5hin of yore. It has gone so far downhill as to be unreadable.
showerst 15y ago
I'm a bit confused by the numbers here. They had 400 appointments and made $500,000 in revenue? Does that mean that they're charging over a thousand bucks to set these things up?
- kirillzubovsky 15y ago
  Not certain, but it seems they charge you the full amount for the procedure and then pass the money down, with an exception of a small fee. That's why with 500K in revenue, their profit #s are lower.
- 4clicknet 15y ago
  My first start-up was a medical tourism company. It's basically an affiliate business model: you get 5-10% of the cost from the doctor, hotel, and airline (depending on your negotiation skills). $500K revenue means $25-50K in true gross revenue for the company. Their net profit is $3-5K on that revenue, depending on how efficient they are. I put my business on the back burner for 2 reasons: 1) 5-10% of the cost of the package is your true revenue before overheads, so the it's not very profitable once you consider your expenses. 2) It's a high touch customer service experience, so you can't scale it profitably (people will not buy an operation via e-commerce like they would an e-book: there's a lot of personalized contact and questions, examination of records, etc.).
- paul_mctaggart 15y ago
  $500K is the bookings of Dental Departures...our revenues are 15% of this total Full disclosure: I work @ Dental Departures
ChristianMarks 15y ago
I just spent $21,600 on three implants and four crowns. And that was with insurance.
harshaw 15y ago
My Wife is a Dentist with a specialty in prosthodontics. One of the more complicated cases you can do in Dentistry is a full mouth reconstruction where you basically are fixing all the teeth and likely fixing the bite. These treatment plans can easily cost $30K or greater. Sure, you can go overseas and get this kind of treatment. However, if they are doing implants the only way to do it in a timely basis is immediate placement (stick the implant in the bone and put a crown on) instead of installing the implant and waiting for the bone to heal. Additionally, good luck in getting a stateside dentist to support foreign dental work. The statement that dentistry has been around since Roman times is laughable; certainly not modern dentistry and definitely not implant dentistry. Here's a brief overview of the economics: 230K student loans, 6K / month business loan for office, 2K / month rent (fairly cheap IMO), salaries for staff, malpractice, lab fees, etc. So there is clearly a lot of shit to pay for. We aren't driving a Bentley yet. One of the big issues driving cost is the same thing as medical costs: fee for service payment. The nature of the beast forces Dentist to optimize specific procedures or more of the expensive procedures. Additonally, armies of consultants out there train dentists (and their staff) to optimize "coding" against Dental insurance rules to optimize the payouts from the insurance companies.
- Retric 15y ago
  There are basically 4 things driving up medical costs in this country. (Education, Malpractice, R&D, and Insurance) Unfortunately, I don't see any fundamental change happening in any of those areas any time soon. Just think what it would mean if you banned say, advertising the name of any prescription drug to private citizens. I mean I can understand advertising that there are prescription treatments for ED which hey people might not know about. But, when these things have significant side effects and can't be sold over the counter you need actual medical advice not just people dancing around with smiles on their faces. Not that I think there is a chance in hell of this actually changing, but many country's actually do something like this.
  - a3camero 15y ago
    Your neighbour to the north does this. It leads to vague advertising that tells you about some problem and encourages you to ask your doctor about it. Doesn't seem to have been the end of the world.
petercooper 15y ago
A guy who used to come to our local tech group used to get dentists from Hungary to come to the UK and set up in inflatable dental surgeries at temporary locations and offer cheap dental care. So that's bringing cheap dentists to us, rather than us heading to the cheap dentists. No idea how it panned out though, as he isn't doing it anymore.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1051660/Deflated-charges-blow-dental-surgery-Travelling-Hungarians-offer-half-price-treatment-UK.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1051660/Deflated-c...
mrmekon 15y ago
My parents have been traveling to Costa Rica for their dental work for years (from the US). My dad usually stays with a local family through a language-exchange program, stays for two weeks, and takes Spanish classes at their local university. He says he's saved tens of thousands of dollars (he doesn't have dental insurance here), and gets awesome, educational vacations out of the deal. Even my mother, who is not adventurous at all, loves it. The dentists speak perfect English and have top-tier practices.
- paul_mctaggart 15y ago
  Great to hear that your parents had an excellent experience in Costa Rica! I really think once people step inside a Costa Rican/Thailand, Mexico dental clinic their concerns of quality fade away. Full disclosure: I work @ Dental Departures
kandalf 15y ago
My grandparents have been to Argentina a couple times in the last few years to get their dental work done. They have been extremely happy with the quality service as well as the pricing. Commercializing this is a great idea.
s0me0ne 15y ago
Is there a site like this for healthcare? I remember seeing something on the news once where people were going to India to get surgery done. When the US treats healthcare like profitable business, what else do expect to happen? Consumers w health issues will go elsewhere if possible, although with emergencies, you are pretty much stuck here.

An amazing idea to disrupt this industry. I can see the same thing for medical and vision. Lasik for 25% of the cost sounds nice (but messing with your eyes is a big risk). What are other players in this market?

read_wharf 15y ago
Medical tourism, from the States to elsewhere, has been a "thing" for some time, maybe a decade(?). I'm sure it's been done individually by out of the box thinkers well before that. It's great that businesses like in the article are making this a bit more accessible and known, it will put some cost pressure on Stateside providers. Also help people save some money by going outside the States, or even get care that just would not happen otherwise.

eof 15y ago

I am currently in Nicaragua. I am from the USA and don't have health insurance. I had a toothache that was periodically dehabilitating, mostly in high altitudes. Having an irrational fear of the dentist and a rational fear of dental bills, I put it off for longer than I should have, and only last week got my work done in Managua. A root canal, 3 cavities, a half a dozen or so xrays and a teeth cleaning was about $600; and included 3 visits and xanax for 2 of the 3 visits. The last root canal I had in the USA was in 2002, and cost 1100 with insurance. I went to one of the most expensive dentists in Managua because he was recommended highly and spoke perfect english, and I didn't really trust my spanish. Really interesting to wrap this phenomenon in a profitable venture; but I found it easy to get the information myself. I would 100% absolutely do it again.

dmix 15y ago
Interesting. How much was the flight + living expenses by comparison?
- eof 15y ago
  I have been traveling around for a while so I can't comment on flight as I came via bus from Costa Rica. Living expenses are extremely cheap. A nice apt on a short term lease in a nice part of Managua is 300-400 a month. A very nice restaurant is like 7 dollars a person; food on the street is <$2 a meal. For comparison, day labor outside of Managua costs 150 cordoba a day; or about 7 dollars.

rdtsc 15y ago

Can't wait to see the response and the PR campaign launched by American Dental Association (or whatever it is called). "<fade in> <sad marimba music playing> <black and white scene> some guy is on the floor in fetal position, in some dirty antiquated medical office, he is alone, holding his jaw with his hand. Camera slowly zooms out, out of the windows, we see he is in Bangkok. Voice over "thinking of trying dental tourism? Think again!" < fade out >" On a related topic. I've been practicing medical tourism for 15 years now. Had 1 surgery, dental work, regular comprehensive full panel tests and saved lots of money. (I went to Eastern Europe). What can I say. I go and also visit friends and I have connections there to know which doctors are good. Can't imagine just going there without knowing the doctors or knowing the country. Corruption is rampant. Imagine it is the same in Thailand or South America. Once this takes off, there will be lots of opportunity there to prey on American "health" tourists. I would have to really trust the whole chain of connections : company that manages this, people they employ locally, local doctors, nurses.

ricardobeat 15y ago
I can't vouch for anywhere else in South America, but private clinics in Brazil are pretty much safe, well equiped and pristine (public healthcare is a whoole different story). We also have leading research in many medical fields, can't imagine Thailand (no disrespect) being anywhere near.

viraptor 15y ago

I completely agree with this. I'm doing a... reverse tourism (?) every year by leaving the UK to visit my family in Europe and get my dental issues fixed there. Saves me a lot of money considering cheap flight tickets are around £50 both ways and a standard filling with local anaesthesia costs the same (in a good quality place)... With local prices of ~£7 per month for basic dental insurance, this is a very simple choice.

_delirium 15y ago

Here's an article from 2003 on (the old) Kuro5hin on the same subject, involving dental tourism to Mexico: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/20/121018/65 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/12/20/121018/65

Daniel_Newby 15y ago
I miss the Kuro5hin of yore. It has gone so far downhill as to be unreadable.

showerst 15y ago

I'm a bit confused by the numbers here. They had 400 appointments and made $500,000 in revenue? Does that mean that they're charging over a thousand bucks to set these things up?

kirillzubovsky 15y ago
Not certain, but it seems they charge you the full amount for the procedure and then pass the money down, with an exception of a small fee. That's why with 500K in revenue, their profit #s are lower.
4clicknet 15y ago
My first start-up was a medical tourism company. It's basically an affiliate business model: you get 5-10% of the cost from the doctor, hotel, and airline (depending on your negotiation skills). $500K revenue means $25-50K in true gross revenue for the company. Their net profit is $3-5K on that revenue, depending on how efficient they are. I put my business on the back burner for 2 reasons: 1) 5-10% of the cost of the package is your true revenue before overheads, so the it's not very profitable once you consider your expenses. 2) It's a high touch customer service experience, so you can't scale it profitably (people will not buy an operation via e-commerce like they would an e-book: there's a lot of personalized contact and questions, examination of records, etc.).
paul_mctaggart 15y ago
$500K is the bookings of Dental Departures...our revenues are 15% of this total Full disclosure: I work @ Dental Departures

ChristianMarks 15y ago

I just spent $21,600 on three implants and four crowns. And that was with insurance.

harshaw 15y ago

My Wife is a Dentist with a specialty in prosthodontics. One of the more complicated cases you can do in Dentistry is a full mouth reconstruction where you basically are fixing all the teeth and likely fixing the bite. These treatment plans can easily cost $30K or greater. Sure, you can go overseas and get this kind of treatment. However, if they are doing implants the only way to do it in a timely basis is immediate placement (stick the implant in the bone and put a crown on) instead of installing the implant and waiting for the bone to heal. Additionally, good luck in getting a stateside dentist to support foreign dental work. The statement that dentistry has been around since Roman times is laughable; certainly not modern dentistry and definitely not implant dentistry. Here's a brief overview of the economics: 230K student loans, 6K / month business loan for office, 2K / month rent (fairly cheap IMO), salaries for staff, malpractice, lab fees, etc. So there is clearly a lot of shit to pay for. We aren't driving a Bentley yet. One of the big issues driving cost is the same thing as medical costs: fee for service payment. The nature of the beast forces Dentist to optimize specific procedures or more of the expensive procedures. Additonally, armies of consultants out there train dentists (and their staff) to optimize "coding" against Dental insurance rules to optimize the payouts from the insurance companies.

Retric 15y ago
There are basically 4 things driving up medical costs in this country. (Education, Malpractice, R&D, and Insurance) Unfortunately, I don't see any fundamental change happening in any of those areas any time soon. Just think what it would mean if you banned say, advertising the name of any prescription drug to private citizens. I mean I can understand advertising that there are prescription treatments for ED which hey people might not know about. But, when these things have significant side effects and can't be sold over the counter you need actual medical advice not just people dancing around with smiles on their faces. Not that I think there is a chance in hell of this actually changing, but many country's actually do something like this.
- a3camero 15y ago
  Your neighbour to the north does this. It leads to vague advertising that tells you about some problem and encourages you to ask your doctor about it. Doesn't seem to have been the end of the world.

petercooper 15y ago

A guy who used to come to our local tech group used to get dentists from Hungary to come to the UK and set up in inflatable dental surgeries at temporary locations and offer cheap dental care. So that's bringing cheap dentists to us, rather than us heading to the cheap dentists. No idea how it panned out though, as he isn't doing it anymore.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1051660/Deflated-charges-blow-dental-surgery-Travelling-Hungarians-offer-half-price-treatment-UK.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1051660/Deflated-c...

mrmekon 15y ago

My parents have been traveling to Costa Rica for their dental work for years (from the US). My dad usually stays with a local family through a language-exchange program, stays for two weeks, and takes Spanish classes at their local university. He says he's saved tens of thousands of dollars (he doesn't have dental insurance here), and gets awesome, educational vacations out of the deal. Even my mother, who is not adventurous at all, loves it. The dentists speak perfect English and have top-tier practices.

paul_mctaggart 15y ago
Great to hear that your parents had an excellent experience in Costa Rica! I really think once people step inside a Costa Rican/Thailand, Mexico dental clinic their concerns of quality fade away. Full disclosure: I work @ Dental Departures

kandalf 15y ago

My grandparents have been to Argentina a couple times in the last few years to get their dental work done. They have been extremely happy with the quality service as well as the pricing. Commercializing this is a great idea.

s0me0ne 15y ago

Is there a site like this for healthcare? I remember seeing something on the news once where people were going to India to get surgery done. When the US treats healthcare like profitable business, what else do expect to happen? Consumers w health issues will go elsewhere if possible, although with emergencies, you are pretty much stuck here.