Medical Tourism? Are the savings worth the cost?
Posted by steven_spear | Under health care, process excellence Friday Jun 12, 2009Does it make sense to travel overseas for surgical and other medical procedures in pursuit of lower cost care? In the view of writers Arnold Milstein, Mark Smith, and Jerome Kassirer, we don’t rightly know (”Overseas, Under the Knife,” NY Times, June 10, 2009).
Why? “The only way to know is to find out how foreign hospitals and surgeons compare with their American counterparts.”
The problem? “We can’t know until we can directly compare the outcomes with those of American surgery.”
The solution? “To begin, we must adopt a uniform way for American hospitals and surgeons to report on the frequency of short-term surgical complications.”
“Patients and their surgeons also need comparable measurements of long-term success.”
The current state? “So far, however, only a small minority of surgeons participate in this or any other valid national system of reporting surgical outcomes.”
…even though…”The system used for many years by Veterans Affairs hospitals to reduce surgical complications is the best option for this [tracking short term complications], since it is available to all American doctors through the American College of Surgeons.”
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- Measuring Therapeutic Effectiveness and Cost–One Part of Better Care for All
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- Breaking the Tradeoff Paradigm Among Quality, Safety, and Cost
With the resources these days at a click of a mouse, it’s important to look at all the alternatives when it comes to your health. Medical Tourism to other countries provides an affordable and effective way to healthcare. Patients can reduce their research headaches by going through a reputable medical travel company like WorldMed Assist. It can be overwhelming to find the best country/hospital/doctor for the procedure needed. WorldMed Assist only partners with hospitals after multi-day, on-site screening. Many of the top surgeons in their partner network were trained in the U.S., and most hospitals have affiliations with renowned US medical centers such as Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical. Hospitals are squeaky clean, and all their patients have rated their overseas accommodations as five star. Visit Worldmed Assist for more on Procedures offered.
Well, I think just like anything else people need to do their research. You don’t want to head to just any quack for surgery, but if the doctor has a good reputation and education - why not?
Medical tourism is the future and I’m glad that people have options. It is important to do research though!
Yaa,its a good question,for me its unaware for me too.