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Yes without hesitation. Cost is a huge factor. I've seen hospitals in other countries and they look state of the art compared to many in the U.S. Their doctors are more than qualified and many educated in the U.S. (if that matters to you).
Yes there are horror stories, but they exist here in the U.S. as well. Fear mongering from the medical community is rampant.
2. In the USA, most of the cost is absorbed by insurance, or Medicaid, and the patient only pays a percentage of the total bill.
Please. Stop. Now.
Everybody in the US pays about twice as much as necessary for the actual cost of medical care in the US. Everybody pays the total bill and in the US everybody pays through the nose.
I have had elective eye surgery abroad (no complications, had follow-up checks, no problem) and other family members routinely travel abroad for medical care. As some have mentioned, there are doctors with many decades of hands-on experience, literally hands on, and they don't need to give the patient the run around from one machine to another, from one just-out-of-school technician to another masquerading as doctors, and then either screwing up the diagnosis or saying, one after the other, I don't know, go to another specialist and another machine.
I had a tooth pulled in Budapest, probably 15 years ago, Does that count? (It was an abscess, had been root-canalled previously so that was not a solution.) It was $78 including the panoramic X-Ray. Excellent work.
I've studied this for a possible insurance product (covering bad outcomes at selected clinics- my employer backed away from it). There are also a couple of good shows on Netflix covering medical tourism. "Botched-up Bodies" is the one with horror stories and there's another on a clinic in Thailand heavily used by Australians, mosty women seeking cosmetic surgery. I'd go to to place in Thailand in a heartbeat. They test extensively before the surgery to make sure you're healthy enough to withstand it, same afterwards to make sure you're well enough to go home, and they'll delay either if necessary. If a woman who's 34A wants DD breasts they tell her no because she doesn't have enough skin to cover them. "Botched-up Bodies" had several women who'd gotten bargain breast implants that were too big and the incisions ruptured. One was discharged anyway, put into a tax to a hotel and sent home. The dental implants in the same show were cringe-worthy. I think I could do better work with a few hours of instruction.
So, I'd do my research but I wouldn't dismiss the idea.
Here is a more recent health care cost comparison on Heart Bypass, Hip and Knee Replacements from an Insurer's site.
The Hip Replacement cost of US$13k (Singapore) vs US$45k (USA) is highly doubtful. If you look at the latest MOH's fee benchmarks for what a surgeon can charge in the private sector, a Hip Replacement falls in the range of S$8,550 (US$6,257) up to S$12,850 (US$9,404). And that is just the surgeon's fee. After including the anesthetist's fee, the procedure-related facility fee and a 5-day stay at the hospital (public or private) , the sum is likely to balloon to US$30k and above.
Some of the big well known hospitals in Thailand, such as Bumrungrad hospital, regularly treat people from all over the world. And if you look up the qualifications of their physicians, you'll find that many were trained in the USA. I think that particular hospital also has a USA management team. Anyway, the treatment is top notch, and yet the cost is often 10x less that comparable treatment in the USA. A ticket to Bangkok doesn't cost that much.
I've never had the need to seek treatment outside the USA, as I have excellent health insurance. But for anyone who doesn't, take a look at Thailand.
Interesting that this tread was brought back to life after it died over 4 years ago.
I would add, no, I would not travel to another country for medical care. It isn't only the cost of the flight for heavens sake, it is the cost of staying in another country while being treated, it is being away from family, it is follow up treatment afterwards and on and on We have very good medical care right here in our own country.
Interesting that this tread was brought back to life after it died over 4 years ago.
I would add, no, I would not travel to another country for medical care. It isn't only the cost of the flight for heavens sake, it is the cost of staying in another country while being treated, it is being away from family, it is follow up treatment afterwards and on and on We have very good medical care right here in our own country.
Many people who travel to another country for medical care already have a support network in the country where they are traveling to. In other cases, people make all the calculations and determine that it is still worth it to travel abroad, depends on the case.
I don't think anyone disputes too rigorously the quality of health care in the United States, but rather the 1) efficiency of its financing, 2) the efficiency of diagnostics, and 3) overall outcomes which are not significantly better than anywhere else where they do 1) and 2) as or more efficiently.
My impression is the US health care system does best in cases where high technology diagnoses and treatments prove to be the only method of cure, otherwise the results are average and the price way out of proportion.
Clearly there is room for improvement, but it is not clear what to do exactly, the debate has been going on for decades and little or nothing has been done.
Meanwhile more people are not healthy and life expectancy has slunk back. Now, that may have a lot to do with quality of food supply, industrial, trade and immigration policies, and lifestyle choices.
If only we had leaders with enough vision to understand how all those policies and choices are integrated, we might make positive progress.
I'm not holding my breath, I do my own thing instead. No complaints, really.
Here is a more recent health care cost comparison on Heart Bypass, Hip and Knee Replacements from an Insurer's site.
The Hip Replacement cost of US$13k (Singapore) vs US$45k (USA) is highly doubtful. If you look at the latest MOH's fee benchmarks for what a surgeon can charge in the private sector, a Hip Replacement falls in the range of S$8,550 (US$6,257) up to S$12,850 (US$9,404). And that is just the surgeon's fee. After including the anesthetist's fee, the procedure-related facility fee and a 5-day stay at the hospital (public or private) , the sum is likely to balloon to US$30k and above.
One needs to be sure their insurance will cover care out of the country which many will not: consider whether any costs not covered it out of the country can be paid in US dollars and what about care after the surgery is compete and the patient is back home or what if something doesn't go as planned. of course for those on medicare, it does not cover any procedures our of the country.
I would not take a chance on deciding to go to an other country for any medical procedure.
Absolutely not: the one exception might be, if I lived close enough to Mexico I might consider it for dental work. Even then, I am not sure. I know a few people, when we lived in Alb who did this with good results, but a few with awful results and when something goes wrong you have no place to go. You are stuck. Expensive or not, we have top quality medical care here in America.
What's even worse - if you cross the border in the current political climate, you might have trouble getting back home right away. Or at all. Depends on certain variables, the absolute least of which is the line of cars at the checkpoints all trying to get back north.
For me this is one of those 'it depends' situations. The US has the best care in the world, but only if you have access to it. Personally I don't know anybody who has sought care in another country. But I do know a lot of people who struggle with bills, and the truth is one severe illness can instantly lead a person to permanent financial ruin. I have definitely seen that happen. I have a close relative with a 7 figure hospital bill. That's going to be impossible for the average US citizen to pay off in a lifetime. I have a college buddy who had to declare bankruptcy because he could not pay his deceased wife's experimental cancer treatment bill. So in situations where it's not an immediate emergency, I think I would evaluate the pros and cons of medical tourism if faced with that decision. Do I risk going to out of country for an affordable but life altering surgery even though follow up care would be a big challenge? Or do I put off the surgery until I can find a local hospital that will accept my insurance? Let's be honest - that can be a huge challenge, too. And then there's the bill. The best follow up care in the world does not matter if you could never afford treatment in the first place.
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