7 ms·

For Medical Tourists, Simple Math

121 points by scottkduncan 13y ago

EwanG 13y ago
So I get that by cutting out the insurer you are saving some funds, but where does the rest of the difference come from? Are the hospital rooms and surgeons so much cheaper because everyone in those countries pay them rather than just the few people who actually use their services?
- markvdb 13y ago
  Some possible reasons: * The hospital system in Belgium is 99% either state or non-profit owned. Less sticky fingers. Less luxury. * Infrastructure (buildings, tools, ...). The infrastructure is extremely heavily state subsidised. * Medical professional wage negotiations. Medical professionals earn quite a bit less in Belgium than in the US. Quite many (most?) medical pros actually seem to have their priorities right: helping people solve medical problems. * Choice. In Belgium, people, not insurers choose the hospital they go to, based on reputation and perceived quality. * Volume. Healthcare in Belgium is fairly accessible, probably one of the most accessible in the world. This means few people putting off operations for financial reasons, so higher volume. * State subsidies spilling over to foreign patients in unintended ways. I could very well imagine some of the marginal cost of an operation on a non-resident American citizen also being carried by the state in other ways. Two anecdotes, logical consequences of this system. 1) My (poor by US standards) 90 years old neighbour had a hip replacement at the age of 86, 100% paid by the state. 2) An aunt working as a nurse told me about a phenomenon that was quite common until a few years ago: "winter rabbits", old people "dumped" into hospital for several weeks even if they were not ill. Relatives dumped them at the hospital as a (to them) low cost way of getting rid of them for a few weeks while on holiday for example.
  - berntb 13y ago
    I've lived in Scandinavia, with largely similar systems (they vary a bit, I've seen Sweden and a bit of Finland). The health care systems are centrally planned and administered, and hence have the typical problems doing the work in an efficient manner. For instance, it is acknowledged in international comparisons as really hard to get diagnosed because doctors just don't have the time, largely because of administration. Me and others I know have had years and decades of lowered life quality from easily cured problems like bacteria infections, simple knee problems, allergies and iron/vitamin deficiencies. I've heard good things about the German health care system. Notes: I have also lived a few years outside of the Nordic countries, so I have some perspective. And I agree that the US system seems the craziest one on the Western world. Edit: The government has recently decided that all illegal immigrants in Sweden will get free health care, without any paperwork. If you need an expensive and can fake an Ukrainian accent in English, or something similar, there is a cheap solution for millions of Americans with a ticket to Sweden...
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      "The government has recently decided that all illegal immigrants in Sweden will get free health care, without any paperwork." If the vast majority of people treated are not subject to itemised accounting, the bureaucratic expense of having itemised accounting for one small group can actually be higher than just treating them for free as well.
      - berntb 13y ago
        Not for expensive operations costing 10K++ €. The administration of those payments is already set up for e.g. tourists that get sick. Since it seems I need to explain in more details: The problem is that potentially anyone which can get to Sweden can get expensive treatment free. This is potentially ruinous for a small country. Just the millions of poor gypsies in Romania/Bulgaria which lack good health care for poor people ("I'm from the republic of Moldova outside the EU. I am here illegally because criminals are after me") is enough to break the Swedish health care system if they use this loophole in an organized way. Or normal citizens in those countries, for that matter. We will see...
- btilly 13y ago
  The fundamental problem is that everyone in the system benefits from spiraling costs, and so they make them spiral in ever more egregious ways. Everyone benefits? Well, higher costs are obviously better for hospitals and doctors, but don't insurers want to control costs? Not really. As long as insurers pass costs through, the more they pay, the more they can get away with charging, and the bigger their profits can be. Insurers want predictable and rising costs, not low ones. How egregious is the inflation getting? Let me give you an example. From the mid-90s to now the cost of childbirth tripled. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-bir... for confirmation. In England there was controversy because the royal childbirth cost over 2x what the average childbirth there does. It still cost half the average US childbirth. And no, Obama's plan does not address this issue. It says that insurance companies must spend at least 80% of premiums on health care. If I was an insurer, I'd look at this and see fraud as an opportunity to have the 20% slice which covers my costs and profits continue to rise, and put out effort to catch exactly enough fraud to keep the amount paid out at exactly 80% of the premiums that I collected.
EGreg 13y ago
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of what really accounts for the majority of the price differences. This article mentions some things in passing but ultimately doesn't conclude with the main quantitative insights.
- VonGuard 13y ago
  Most of the difference here is that our hospitals have to fob off the money they lose from treating patients without health care onto those that do. They charge a lot more because every 5th or 6th person coming into the emergency room has no health care, must be given treatment, and will never be able to pay for it. Thus, we all take on that burden through a backdoor, round the corner, through the mailslot, rather than just by dealing with it and giving everyone health care....
  - EGreg 13y ago
    That doesn't really explain how the healthcare can cost 5x or more. What you've said is that every 5th or 6th person is a free rider (presumably due to laws such as the COBRA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Rec...) ... if that was the source of the added costs, it would suggest they would only be 1.2 or 1.5x higher, not 5x or more.
    - Nrsolis 13y ago
      The #1 reason healthcare costs more is because of over-treatment. When providers are paid by the procedure, suddenly everyone needs a procedure (or ten). Combine that with third-party responsibility (insurance pays doctor, employer pays for insurance), opaque pricing structure (doctors are the only ones that can tell you if a procedure is necessary or not), and you have a "market" that is "broken". Put simply, everyone wants "the best care" when they never have to actually pay for it. And as long as providers are incentivized to provide "the best care", they will do it, as lost as "best" equals "expensive".
      - 13y ago
abalone 13y ago
The magic of the market.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  FTA: > Dr. Cram, the Iowa health cost expert, points out that joint manufacturers are businesses, operating within the constraints of varying laws and markets. > “Imagine you’re the C.E.O. of Zimmer,” he said. “Why charge $1,000 for the implant in the U.S. when you can charge $14,000? How would you answer to your shareholders?” Expecting device makers “to do otherwise is like asking, ‘Couldn’t Apple just charge $50 for an iPhone?’ because that’s what it costs to make them.” > But do Americans want medical devices priced like smartphones? “That,” Dr. Cram said, “is a different question.” Indeed. Maybe mixing something that is designed to work better when no ethics is involved (free market and capitalist ideology) with a highly relative to ethics sector (healthCARE) isn't such a good idea. Well, not for shareholders of course.
cpursley 13y ago
Who's interesting in doing a healthcare tourism startup? Especially if you know the medical system well. Serious. Hit me up. My wife has gone to Russia twice for dental work (her home country). Was a fraction of the quotes here, including airfare.
- bubbleRefuge 13y ago
  I second the idea. Had lots of dental work done in latin america a few years ago. Probably saved about 70% on dental costs + we had a nice vacation. What about liability?
  - markvdb 13y ago
    While I agree that liability is important, it becomes less of an issue with treatment so much cheaper, especially for issues that do not threaten your ability to travel. If something goes wrong, you can still go for the 80% cheaper corrective treatment.
- ixacto 13y ago
  It could work if it was accredited/malpractice was covered somehow, then just make a hospital in Mexico or the Bahamas. Of course it would need to be less expensive than the USA, have better outcomes, and have the same level of legal responsibility...we are a very litigious nation.
  - EGreg 13y ago
    Why a single hospital? Have a website which lists hospitals and reviews of people, the prices charged, and even the doctors who practice there. Then people could book the trips through the site, which would take a 5% cut. Is this any good: http://www.treatmentabroad.com/medical-tourism/ratings-and-reviews/ http://www.treatmentabroad.com/medical-tourism/ratings-and-r...
    - mjn 13y ago
      I'm a bit skeptical of crowdsourced ratings for this kind of thing, given the relatively poor quality (and frequent gaming) of ratings on sites like Yelp and Amazon. Some objective information, like third-party-audited statistics on treatment outcomes, on the other hand, would be very valuable.
ixacto 13y ago
So what are the negatives? This NYT article reads like a PR piece for medical tourism... What about malpractice insurance in Belgium/Poland and what happens if there are problems down the road with TFA's hip implant?
- lordofbackland 13y ago
  I don't know about insurance malpractices but how this malpractice outweigh or even relevant to this topic. And also out of of curiosity does USA hospital give guarantee of not having any problem with implants.
  - veritas213 13y ago
    They dont offer such guarantees in the US. Its just assumed because of the threat of lawsuits is soo high.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  What happens if there are problems down the road with an implant (or any other procedure) you got in the US? You pay for more procedures, that's what. The ability to sue for millions of dollars is the one "advantage" of buying your medical care (or airplane tickets) in the US. We each need to decide how important that is to us.
  - octatone2 13y ago
    > The ability to sue for millions of dollars is the one "advantage" That isn't necessarily true, as some states have caps on tort damages, and more corperations are lobying for similar caps/limits on civil restitution via state law: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/even-with-counsel-texas-amputee-is-hindered-by-state-tort-laws.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/even-with-counsel-texas...
- chiph 13y ago
  Your insurance company is likely to deny coverage for procedures performed outside the US (if for no other reason than because they can), so that's a definite risk. But that's a reason to choose Belgium over somewhere like Guatemala -- while you won't get the gift shop or valet parking, the quality of care is much more likely to be at the same level as in the US.
Qantourisc 13y ago
The state should also do some math. What is the cost of having a disabled person, even if slightly ?
YokoZar 13y ago
"In addition, device makers typically require doctors’ groups and hospitals to sign nondisclosure agreements about prices, which means institutions do not know what their competitors are paying. This secrecy erodes bargaining power and has allowed a small industry of profit-taking middlemen to flourish: joint implant purchasing consultants, implant billing companies, joint brokers. There are as many as 13 layers of vendors between the physician and the patient for a hip replacement, according to Kate Willhite, a former executive director of the Manitowoc Surgery Center in Wisconsin." A simple legal remedy here would be to invalidate this sort of NDA agreement. The government is already involved as a customer in the health care market, and having the courts simply no longer recognize contracts that prohibit disclosure of prices would bring some immediate transparency to many involved. The law could also go a step further and actually set up/order public listings of prices (this is already done in a lot of industries where vendors try to avoid competing on price).
IANAICANABANA 13y ago
I was a medical tourist in the opposite direction earlier this year. I'm from Canada, land of free health care, and my doctor told me that I would have to wait 6 months to see a specialist. My ailment[1] prevented me from sleeping most nights, caused severe, productivity-ending headaches all day, and caused me to pop ibuprofens like candy. My PCP attempted to use water to eliminate what he believed was an earwax impaction 14 times on separate days. It had been almost 2 months of me completely disabled before he was willing to put in a referral to the ENT. When he did, they told me it would be six months. You can imagine my frustration. So, I had a friend drive me to a clinic in Washington state. A bit of discussion, $900 and two visits later, I had seen an otolaryngologist, he had used a small curette to clean out the ear canal, and I was better. $900 to not cry myself to sleep all day for six months seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Six months later I got a phone call from an office of an ENT here in Canada. I was unbelievably angry. [1] I had a condition where the skin had grown over the eardrum in your ear. It required surgery by an otolaryngologist to remove the problem and restore my hearing.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I read a while back that the US hospitals charge foreign medical tourists competitive rates. But getting that rate as an American is another matter since the hospitals make so much with their standard rates.
  - JVIDEL 13y ago
    Nope, I been to the doctor while in the US and the bill was insane given it was a routine check. Good thing I had travel insurance.
    - joe_the_user 13y ago
      I mean the price charged to people from other countries who shop different hospitals for particular medical procedures - "medical tourists". Ordinary tourists who come for other reasons and happen to seek medical care are a completely different story - they'll be charged the "highest possible fee, 'cause we can" rate.
jotm 13y ago
Jesus Christ, the price is 5 times lower for a non-EU citizen in Belgium (which is still pretty expensive by worldwide or even European standards)? That's just unbelievable...
huherto 13y ago
Some cities in Mexico have a very good medical system for the local rich elite that is very affordable for Americans. This is from my hometown... http://www.chihuahuamedicalcity.com/English/hospitales.html http://www.chihuahuamedicalcity.com/English/hospitales.html
bdcravens 13y ago
Eventually I'll need a lung transplant, and possibly more (I have Cystic Fibrosis). It's one thing to talk teeth and knee joints, but lungs and livers are a completely different story. That said, paying $150K+ isn't something I'm looking forward to (or even know that I'll be able to do), so medical tourism is something I follow closely to see how it develops.
Ras_ 13y ago
Cross-European medical tourism could explode next year, after 2011/24/EU: Directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare enters into application. The directive created a legal framework for patient’s right to seek healthcare in another member state and for reimbursement. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:088:0045:0065:EN:PDF http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

121 points by scottkduncan 13y ago

EwanG 13y ago

So I get that by cutting out the insurer you are saving some funds, but where does the rest of the difference come from? Are the hospital rooms and surgeons so much cheaper because everyone in those countries pay them rather than just the few people who actually use their services?

markvdb 13y ago
Some possible reasons: * The hospital system in Belgium is 99% either state or non-profit owned. Less sticky fingers. Less luxury. * Infrastructure (buildings, tools, ...). The infrastructure is extremely heavily state subsidised. * Medical professional wage negotiations. Medical professionals earn quite a bit less in Belgium than in the US. Quite many (most?) medical pros actually seem to have their priorities right: helping people solve medical problems. * Choice. In Belgium, people, not insurers choose the hospital they go to, based on reputation and perceived quality. * Volume. Healthcare in Belgium is fairly accessible, probably one of the most accessible in the world. This means few people putting off operations for financial reasons, so higher volume. * State subsidies spilling over to foreign patients in unintended ways. I could very well imagine some of the marginal cost of an operation on a non-resident American citizen also being carried by the state in other ways. Two anecdotes, logical consequences of this system. 1) My (poor by US standards) 90 years old neighbour had a hip replacement at the age of 86, 100% paid by the state. 2) An aunt working as a nurse told me about a phenomenon that was quite common until a few years ago: "winter rabbits", old people "dumped" into hospital for several weeks even if they were not ill. Relatives dumped them at the hospital as a (to them) low cost way of getting rid of them for a few weeks while on holiday for example.
- berntb 13y ago
  I've lived in Scandinavia, with largely similar systems (they vary a bit, I've seen Sweden and a bit of Finland). The health care systems are centrally planned and administered, and hence have the typical problems doing the work in an efficient manner. For instance, it is acknowledged in international comparisons as really hard to get diagnosed because doctors just don't have the time, largely because of administration. Me and others I know have had years and decades of lowered life quality from easily cured problems like bacteria infections, simple knee problems, allergies and iron/vitamin deficiencies. I've heard good things about the German health care system. Notes: I have also lived a few years outside of the Nordic countries, so I have some perspective. And I agree that the US system seems the craziest one on the Western world. Edit: The government has recently decided that all illegal immigrants in Sweden will get free health care, without any paperwork. If you need an expensive and can fake an Ukrainian accent in English, or something similar, there is a cheap solution for millions of Americans with a ticket to Sweden...
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    "The government has recently decided that all illegal immigrants in Sweden will get free health care, without any paperwork." If the vast majority of people treated are not subject to itemised accounting, the bureaucratic expense of having itemised accounting for one small group can actually be higher than just treating them for free as well.
    - berntb 13y ago
      Not for expensive operations costing 10K++ €. The administration of those payments is already set up for e.g. tourists that get sick. Since it seems I need to explain in more details: The problem is that potentially anyone which can get to Sweden can get expensive treatment free. This is potentially ruinous for a small country. Just the millions of poor gypsies in Romania/Bulgaria which lack good health care for poor people ("I'm from the republic of Moldova outside the EU. I am here illegally because criminals are after me") is enough to break the Swedish health care system if they use this loophole in an organized way. Or normal citizens in those countries, for that matter. We will see...
btilly 13y ago
The fundamental problem is that everyone in the system benefits from spiraling costs, and so they make them spiral in ever more egregious ways. Everyone benefits? Well, higher costs are obviously better for hospitals and doctors, but don't insurers want to control costs? Not really. As long as insurers pass costs through, the more they pay, the more they can get away with charging, and the bigger their profits can be. Insurers want predictable and rising costs, not low ones. How egregious is the inflation getting? Let me give you an example. From the mid-90s to now the cost of childbirth tripled. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-birth-costliest-in-the-world.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/health/american-way-of-bir... for confirmation. In England there was controversy because the royal childbirth cost over 2x what the average childbirth there does. It still cost half the average US childbirth. And no, Obama's plan does not address this issue. It says that insurance companies must spend at least 80% of premiums on health care. If I was an insurer, I'd look at this and see fraud as an opportunity to have the 20% slice which covers my costs and profits continue to rise, and put out effort to catch exactly enough fraud to keep the amount paid out at exactly 80% of the premiums that I collected.

EGreg 13y ago

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of what really accounts for the majority of the price differences. This article mentions some things in passing but ultimately doesn't conclude with the main quantitative insights.

VonGuard 13y ago
Most of the difference here is that our hospitals have to fob off the money they lose from treating patients without health care onto those that do. They charge a lot more because every 5th or 6th person coming into the emergency room has no health care, must be given treatment, and will never be able to pay for it. Thus, we all take on that burden through a backdoor, round the corner, through the mailslot, rather than just by dealing with it and giving everyone health care....
- EGreg 13y ago
  That doesn't really explain how the healthcare can cost 5x or more. What you've said is that every 5th or 6th person is a free rider (presumably due to laws such as the COBRA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Omnibus_Budget_Rec...) ... if that was the source of the added costs, it would suggest they would only be 1.2 or 1.5x higher, not 5x or more.
  - Nrsolis 13y ago
    The #1 reason healthcare costs more is because of over-treatment. When providers are paid by the procedure, suddenly everyone needs a procedure (or ten). Combine that with third-party responsibility (insurance pays doctor, employer pays for insurance), opaque pricing structure (doctors are the only ones that can tell you if a procedure is necessary or not), and you have a "market" that is "broken". Put simply, everyone wants "the best care" when they never have to actually pay for it. And as long as providers are incentivized to provide "the best care", they will do it, as lost as "best" equals "expensive".
    - 13y ago

abalone 13y ago

The magic of the market.

johnchristopher 13y ago
FTA: > Dr. Cram, the Iowa health cost expert, points out that joint manufacturers are businesses, operating within the constraints of varying laws and markets. > “Imagine you’re the C.E.O. of Zimmer,” he said. “Why charge $1,000 for the implant in the U.S. when you can charge $14,000? How would you answer to your shareholders?” Expecting device makers “to do otherwise is like asking, ‘Couldn’t Apple just charge $50 for an iPhone?’ because that’s what it costs to make them.” > But do Americans want medical devices priced like smartphones? “That,” Dr. Cram said, “is a different question.” Indeed. Maybe mixing something that is designed to work better when no ethics is involved (free market and capitalist ideology) with a highly relative to ethics sector (healthCARE) isn't such a good idea. Well, not for shareholders of course.

cpursley 13y ago

Who's interesting in doing a healthcare tourism startup? Especially if you know the medical system well. Serious. Hit me up. My wife has gone to Russia twice for dental work (her home country). Was a fraction of the quotes here, including airfare.

bubbleRefuge 13y ago
I second the idea. Had lots of dental work done in latin america a few years ago. Probably saved about 70% on dental costs + we had a nice vacation. What about liability?
- markvdb 13y ago
  While I agree that liability is important, it becomes less of an issue with treatment so much cheaper, especially for issues that do not threaten your ability to travel. If something goes wrong, you can still go for the 80% cheaper corrective treatment.
ixacto 13y ago
It could work if it was accredited/malpractice was covered somehow, then just make a hospital in Mexico or the Bahamas. Of course it would need to be less expensive than the USA, have better outcomes, and have the same level of legal responsibility...we are a very litigious nation.
- EGreg 13y ago
  Why a single hospital? Have a website which lists hospitals and reviews of people, the prices charged, and even the doctors who practice there. Then people could book the trips through the site, which would take a 5% cut. Is this any good: http://www.treatmentabroad.com/medical-tourism/ratings-and-reviews/ http://www.treatmentabroad.com/medical-tourism/ratings-and-r...
  - mjn 13y ago
    I'm a bit skeptical of crowdsourced ratings for this kind of thing, given the relatively poor quality (and frequent gaming) of ratings on sites like Yelp and Amazon. Some objective information, like third-party-audited statistics on treatment outcomes, on the other hand, would be very valuable.

ixacto 13y ago

So what are the negatives? This NYT article reads like a PR piece for medical tourism... What about malpractice insurance in Belgium/Poland and what happens if there are problems down the road with TFA's hip implant?

lordofbackland 13y ago
I don't know about insurance malpractices but how this malpractice outweigh or even relevant to this topic. And also out of of curiosity does USA hospital give guarantee of not having any problem with implants.
- veritas213 13y ago
  They dont offer such guarantees in the US. Its just assumed because of the threat of lawsuits is soo high.
auctiontheory 13y ago
What happens if there are problems down the road with an implant (or any other procedure) you got in the US? You pay for more procedures, that's what. The ability to sue for millions of dollars is the one "advantage" of buying your medical care (or airplane tickets) in the US. We each need to decide how important that is to us.
- octatone2 13y ago
  > The ability to sue for millions of dollars is the one "advantage" That isn't necessarily true, as some states have caps on tort damages, and more corperations are lobying for similar caps/limits on civil restitution via state law: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/even-with-counsel-texas-amputee-is-hindered-by-state-tort-laws.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/even-with-counsel-texas...
chiph 13y ago
Your insurance company is likely to deny coverage for procedures performed outside the US (if for no other reason than because they can), so that's a definite risk. But that's a reason to choose Belgium over somewhere like Guatemala -- while you won't get the gift shop or valet parking, the quality of care is much more likely to be at the same level as in the US.

Qantourisc 13y ago

The state should also do some math. What is the cost of having a disabled person, even if slightly ?

YokoZar 13y ago

"In addition, device makers typically require doctors’ groups and hospitals to sign nondisclosure agreements about prices, which means institutions do not know what their competitors are paying. This secrecy erodes bargaining power and has allowed a small industry of profit-taking middlemen to flourish: joint implant purchasing consultants, implant billing companies, joint brokers. There are as many as 13 layers of vendors between the physician and the patient for a hip replacement, according to Kate Willhite, a former executive director of the Manitowoc Surgery Center in Wisconsin." A simple legal remedy here would be to invalidate this sort of NDA agreement. The government is already involved as a customer in the health care market, and having the courts simply no longer recognize contracts that prohibit disclosure of prices would bring some immediate transparency to many involved. The law could also go a step further and actually set up/order public listings of prices (this is already done in a lot of industries where vendors try to avoid competing on price).

IANAICANABANA 13y ago

I was a medical tourist in the opposite direction earlier this year. I'm from Canada, land of free health care, and my doctor told me that I would have to wait 6 months to see a specialist. My ailment[1] prevented me from sleeping most nights, caused severe, productivity-ending headaches all day, and caused me to pop ibuprofens like candy. My PCP attempted to use water to eliminate what he believed was an earwax impaction 14 times on separate days. It had been almost 2 months of me completely disabled before he was willing to put in a referral to the ENT. When he did, they told me it would be six months. You can imagine my frustration. So, I had a friend drive me to a clinic in Washington state. A bit of discussion, $900 and two visits later, I had seen an otolaryngologist, he had used a small curette to clean out the ear canal, and I was better. $900 to not cry myself to sleep all day for six months seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Six months later I got a phone call from an office of an ENT here in Canada. I was unbelievably angry. [1] I had a condition where the skin had grown over the eardrum in your ear. It required surgery by an otolaryngologist to remove the problem and restore my hearing.

joe_the_user 13y ago
I read a while back that the US hospitals charge foreign medical tourists competitive rates. But getting that rate as an American is another matter since the hospitals make so much with their standard rates.
- JVIDEL 13y ago
  Nope, I been to the doctor while in the US and the bill was insane given it was a routine check. Good thing I had travel insurance.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    I mean the price charged to people from other countries who shop different hospitals for particular medical procedures - "medical tourists". Ordinary tourists who come for other reasons and happen to seek medical care are a completely different story - they'll be charged the "highest possible fee, 'cause we can" rate.

jotm 13y ago

Jesus Christ, the price is 5 times lower for a non-EU citizen in Belgium (which is still pretty expensive by worldwide or even European standards)? That's just unbelievable...

huherto 13y ago

Some cities in Mexico have a very good medical system for the local rich elite that is very affordable for Americans. This is from my hometown... http://www.chihuahuamedicalcity.com/English/hospitales.html http://www.chihuahuamedicalcity.com/English/hospitales.html

bdcravens 13y ago

Eventually I'll need a lung transplant, and possibly more (I have Cystic Fibrosis). It's one thing to talk teeth and knee joints, but lungs and livers are a completely different story. That said, paying $150K+ isn't something I'm looking forward to (or even know that I'll be able to do), so medical tourism is something I follow closely to see how it develops.

Ras_ 13y ago

Cross-European medical tourism could explode next year, after 2011/24/EU: Directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare enters into application. The directive created a legal framework for patient’s right to seek healthcare in another member state and for reimbursement. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:088:0045:0065:EN:PDF http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...