Healthcare Tourism – the Smart Way to Shrink your Medical Bills!
Healthcare tourism is the perfect blend between care for your health and international tourism. Disparate as they may seem, healthcare tourism is a rising trend the world over. The reasons behind the escalating popularity and the widespread practice of healthcare tourism are threefold.
Let’s take a closer look at each.
The primary reason is simply a search for better healthcare services with budget. When one’s health is one’s concern, it is natural to look for the best treatment options within one’s budget. Countries such as India are fast coming to the forefront as provider of world-class healthcare facilities. These include a wide array of highly skilled healthcare professionals, trained in various specialized disciplines, state-of-the-art equipment and modern amenities, impeccable service and personal attention to every need of the patient and all these, at a cost that’s surprisingly affordable.
This brings us to the second reason behind the surging popularity of healthcare tourism – economy of cost. Most people in need of specialized healthcare services feel daunted by the high cost associated with them. Countries such as US, Canada or some European nations, offer the same high standard healthcare facilities at a cost that’s substantially greater than countries like India or Malaysia or Dubai. Let’s face it, not everybody can afford the high cost associated with healthcare services in his or her own country. Nor do all of us enjoy the benefits of medical insurance.
All this naturally necessitates the need to look for similar healthcare services elsewhere, where the cost is lower. Healthcare tourism makes it possible to save up to 80% (as compared to US/UK) on medical costs by opting for countries like India. Healthcare tourism in India is fast gaining in popularity because of this simple reason.
Last, but not the least, you get other benefits such as reduced waiting periods for your treatment. If there is a critical treatment involved, or an operation that needs to be done quickly, you can initiate the process almost immediately after contacting the healthcare professionals in these countries. Most hospitals or medical establishments in the US or UK have lengthy waiting lists and necessitate wait for a substantially longer period of time.
Smart and well-informed professionals, speaking fluent English and attending to every detail with meticulous attention, only add to the overall experience. You can rest assured knowing that the task of caring for your health is in good, able hands. You will also find comfort in the thought that when you are fully treated and about to return home, you will not be handed bills that will make you fall sick all over again.
So what makes healthcare tourism tick? The reasons are many. Exorbitant cost of healthcare and medical facilities in advanced countries, ease and affordability of international travel, favorable currency exchange rates in the global economy, rapidly improving technology and high standards of medical care in the developing countries – all of these have contributed to the rapid development of medical tourism. Opt for healthcare tourism and get the best of medi-care without breaking the bank. And did we mention, the joys and thrills of visiting a new country come for free?
9 Responses to “Healthcare Tourism – the Smart Way to Shrink your Medical Bills!”
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1) No. Insurance may be offered through occupation, or you can get a private provider.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:50 am2)Depends on how badly I needed it.
3)78. 75 for men, 81 for women. From wiki
4)It has pros and cons. I'd like to see some reform.
5)I'd like to see more employers offer insurance, and private insurance be more affordable. I'd also like to see caps on the cost of healthcare.
6)Somewhat. If it stopped at universal healthcare, I would be okay with that. I'm afraid it may open a door allowing more socialist ideals to enter.
If you are business saavy you may consider being on the administrative side of healthcare. Physicians are required to bill with special codes called CPT-4 codes that describe services that they provide to patients. There are also codes to describe every diagnosis.
In order for the physicians to obtain payment for services these codes must be submitted in a timely fashion to insurance companies and they must be within the scope of usual practices.
Insurance companies also deny payment to the physicians more often than not and they need people to fight for their money.
Administrators allow physicians to concentrate of helping patients without the nagging concern of redtape and paperwork.
There are also budgeting, managerial and operational issues in healthcare offices or other settings that are handled by these professionals.
You may consider obtaining a masters in heatlh administration. Please refer to http://www.ache.org.
August 19th, 2010 at 4:20 amSince the drug companies became privatized, there have been far, far less cures than when it was government controlled. Drug companies only want symptom relievers, since they will be reused over and over, whereas cures are not needed once the problem is gone. No money in cures. Drug companies are more interested in Marketing. Obscene amounts go into marketing. At least thousands if not millions are spent on just pens, clocks, notepads, lunches, clipboards, and a ton of little practically useless stuff they give away for the sole purpose of having the name all around the dr. You should go in a dr's office and just look at the amount of stuff with a drug name on it. That is only a small fraction. The government should really take back the pharmaceutical industry, that would definitely lower regular health insurance prices.
If universal health care is brought in, it doesn't mean you can't get regular health insurance. Considering how very little the health insurances pay out ($0.67 on a $10 charge) I highly doubt that the doctors income would be impacted negatively.
I think universal health care would be a great thing. And this is coming from someone who would probably have to find a new job. You don't see the people who come in who don't have to money to get seen. People who are already sick, dying, and still getting harassed about payments. There are already tons of people who die because they just didn't have the money for a doctor. What is a couple of days wait to that?
6 months is quite far fetched. I was in the military, and the same type of system ran. Health care was FREE and there were no massive wait times.
The only valid complaint that I have heard is that you would not always be able to see the same doctor. Not exactly a big deal.
It could very well be that some doctors could choose to take more regular health insurance patients, and then you could have one of those for your regular doctor.
As atrocious as regular health insurance is, most doctors take most of them. Why? To boost the number of patients. Universal health care could work the same way.
Universal health care will certainly not stop the advancement of medicine. With a little less fear involved, it may even enhance it. Besides, that sounds an awful lot like you want to believe the US is the only place in the world who has helped medicine. Nope.
Would you give up your career to keep universal health care from coming?
That's how strongly I support it.
August 19th, 2010 at 5:34 amDon't get sick!
August 20th, 2010 at 3:06 amFirst, I doubt that healthcare will become universal.
August 21st, 2010 at 7:26 amSecond, I see no reason why you as a X-ray technician should lose pay…ompare it to salaries in France & other places where they have universal health care.
An option to consider is traveling overseas for your dental work. I am originally from Los Angeles, but have been living in Monterrey, Mexico for about 2 years now. I have had regular dental visits and am VERY impressed with the quality of the facilities and the doctors. The best part is that dental work is about 50% less expensive here than it is in the U.S! Monterrey, Mexico is just two hours south of Texas, so it is very easy to get to wherever you are. And, you can always combine your visit with a vacation! If this is something that interests you, check out http://www.travelforcare.com a Medical Travel facilitator that will help you with all the details.
August 21st, 2010 at 4:23 pmHospitals carry liability insurance for their nurses. It is unlikely that a nurse will get sued unless she/he does something very deliberate and intentional to harm a patient.
August 21st, 2010 at 11:23 pmI am English and now live in California. Like most people I thought that there was a huge tax burden in Britain, but after coming here I now think that's not the case.We pay two forms of tax from our wages:Income tax and National insurance. Your income tax is tax like everywhere else, national insurance pays for your pension and healthcare. I have lived in England all my life up till now and I will fiercely defend our healthcare system, the NHS (national health service). In thanks largely to the effort of our heroic doctors and nurses (and all other staff) the NHS survives….the healthcare is nothing like as bad as people make out, and there are no long waiting lists anymore (now if you're waiting more than six months for routine surgery they'll send you abroad to have it done, paid for of course). No-one pays anything for medical care and the one reason it's under stress (As a healthcare proffesional I know this from experience) is the fact that something built as a national health service is used as a world health service. People come to the UK from all over Europe to take advantage of the NHS and from all over the world. I would like to see treatment restricted to citizens/people who have paid at least 5 years national insurance contributions but at the same time I would never ever want to see anyone, citizen or not, turned away or denied medical care because of money. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance in the US but the amount hospitals/doctors charge is disgusting and I don't really understand why people are so opposed to universal health care, can you really put a price on life?
August 22nd, 2010 at 4:30 amBy the way income tax is 20% of anything you earn over about 5 and a half thouse pounds ($11k) and national insurance is 11% of anything you earn over 84pounds a week ($160) And people have the option of private healthcare in england too if they want to pay for it
I am from Canada where medical coverage is free for everyone,regardless of whether you work or not.
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:16 pm