Recent Medical Tourism and Travel News

Although medical tourism as a healthcare alternative has emerged on corporate radar screens, the unknown aspects of adopting it as an employee benefit have kept it from being embraced on a large scale.

By Barbara Worthington

For some U.S. workers, the opportunity to undergo hip replacement or cardiac surgery in foreign countries at rates significantly discounted from U.S. hospitals holds great appeal. But relatively few American companies have signed on to offer medical tourism as a healthcare benefit.....read more

Before Diane Paul flew to Cuba in October for knee surgery, she had to make a trip to her local video store. Choice Medical Services, the Winnipeg-based company that arranged the trip for the 57-year-old Haligonian, had recommended that she watch Michael Moore's Sicko.....Read more

Bruce Pearson was leading a gardening tour in Thailand early last year when his chronic back pain got so bad that his friends convinced him to check into a local hospital.....Read more

Union blocks foreign healthcare plan

Despite opposition, other companies are looking to send workers abroad for medical treatment.

ATLANTA – Carl Garrett, an Appalachian paper mill worker, had hoped to go to India this month for medical care - but it didn't work out that way.

The planned journey to New Delhi by Mr. Garrett, a Leicester, N.C., resident wasn't just about fixing his aching left shoulder. His employer, Blue Ridge Paper Products of Canton, N.C., wanted to send a message to American hospitals: Control costs or we'll give our insured workers the option of going overseas for quality, but low-cost care....Read more

Last year, 291,000 American women had bags implanted in their breasts, 324,000 Americans had fat vacuumed out of their bodies, and 231,000 had fat, skin and muscle cut from around their eyes. Add less common operations such as buttock lifts, pectoral implants and vaginal rejuvenations, as well as "minimally invasive" procedures such as Botox injections, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that Americans underwent at least 10.2 million cosmetic surgery procedures last year. Cosmetic surgery has gone mainstream....read more

More Americans Seeking Surgery Abroad

High Costs In U.S. Is Driving Some Patients To Seek Treatment In India And Elsewhere

(WebMD) Dismayed by high surgical costs in the United States, increasing numbers of American patients are packing their bags to have necessary surgery performed in countries such as India, Thailand and Singapore....read more

Rising popularity of medical tourism reveals deterioration of U.S. healthcare system

Defenders of organized medicine are fond of saying that the United States has the best healthcare in the world, but I challenge that. I don't think we have the best healthcare in the world, I think we have the most expensive healthcare in the world. In fact, in terms of results for dollars spent, I think the United States ranks very near the bottom of the list of all industrialized nations. We get less actual health than anyone else for each dollar that we spend....read more

Medical Tourism Takes Flight

FRIDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Soaring U.S. medical costs are causing many Americans to take to the skies on "medical tourism" junkets, looking for high-quality yet low-priced health care at foreign clinics.

In many cases, patients get exactly what they are looking for, but experts also warn that the booming industry does have some risks....read more