Medical Tourism: Your Guide to Fun, Sun, and Cheap Surgery

Traveling for medical treatment dates back to the ancient Greeks, who believed that Asklepios, the god of healing, smiled upon people who went to Epidauria, the Lourdes of the Saronic Gulf.

Health-care costs in the United States are reaching an all-time high of about $2.4 trillion a year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Many Americans are therefore becoming “medical tourists” -- and bypassing the labyrinthine red tape of HMOs and insurance megaliths like United Health (UNH), Humana (HUM), Cigna (CIG), or Aetna (AET).

Though the reported numbers seem to vary widely, it's been said that in 2008, more than 200,000 Americans traveled abroad for health care. The medical tourism market is currently valued at $20 billion annually; the lion’s share of patients choose India, Thailand, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Singapore for their procedures.

The most common ones include dental work, heart surgery, orthopedics, cosmetic surgery, neurosurgery, fertility treatments, LASIK eye repair, and oncology. Generally speaking, a medical tourist can expect to pay between 25%-75% less than they would in the States.



The city of Lugansk, Ukraine, for example, is renowned for its dental work. A partial bridge that’d set you back $5,500 in the US costs a paltry $500 there.

As an added bonus, martial arts enthusiasts can enjoy the fact that Lugansk is the hometown of Fedor Emelianenko, the winner of the 1997 Baltic Judo Championship.

Bum shoulder? Head to Latvia, where they’re known for their orthopedic expertise.

Kidneys on the fritz? Jordan is just a flight away, where they specialize in kidney replacements, as well as neurological operations and heart surgery.

Feel like a sex change? Thailand is for you, where the local specialty is gender reassignment.

However, Dr. Sharon Kleefield of the Harvard Medical School and a specialist in overseas health care told a reporter that “No matter how high your hospital is rated, there are issues with regard to quality and safety when you travel for medical treatment.”

Josef Woodman, author of Patients Beyond Borders, recommends following the $6,000 rule. “If the total estimated cost of the procedure in the United States is more than $6,000, a patient is likely to save money abroad,” he writes.

If you’re really looking to pinch pennies -- and a heavy Taliban presence doesn’t concern you -- it may behoove you to look into seeing a doctor in Kashmir.

Kashmiri physicians charge 80% less for cardiac surgery than those in New Delhi and 95% less than those in Europe.

“We have a lot of avenues for medical tourism,” Dr. AG Ahangar told one Kashmiri newspaper. “Operations that cost Rs 3-5 lakhs in a private hospital in New Delhi can be done here for Rs 50 thousand to Rs 1 lakh," he said.

But the American College of Surgeons says that medical tourism is fraught with risks.

James Unti, MD says:
 

“It’s not just about cutting somebody open, doing surgery, and then walking away. Safe surgical care involves an appropriate preoperative evaluation, often one or more diagnostic procedures, perhaps consultation with others, getting the patient ready for surgery -- checking physiologic parameters like fluids, electrolytes, and cardiac status -- then performing the operation, and then managing or overseeing the postoperative care to be certain that the patient is doing well.”

At Buddhist monastery Tham Krabok, 85 miles north of Bangkok, patient comfort is low on their list of priorities. Their focus, first and foremost, is to help addicts get clean.

Patients pay only 100 baht ($3) a day, to cover the cost of food. A month at the Betty Ford Center costs $23,000, by comparison.

British rock star Pete Doherty, of the Libertines and the Babyshambles, went AWOL from Tham Krabok after 3 days. The Sun newspaper described the monastery as a "notorious hellhole," and that patients were regularly beaten with bamboo canes and forced to drink "poison" by armed guards.

Poison is actually not given to patients. What residents are made to drink is an emetic potion made from seeds, leaves, and tree bark, which results in uncontrollable vomiting, ostensibly to detoxify the body.

Between the beatings, the throwing up, and the strict regimen of manual labor required of patients, Doherty just couldn’t take it. He posted an online statement that read: "Thamkrabok Monastery have done everything they could to help me, but I am not strong enough for this treatment."

Something to consider, perhaps, before you get yourself hooked on crack cocaine.