And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so

But just in the past two years, American patients are being wooed to make decisions on serious medically necessary surgeries due to their fears of excessive healthcare costs. And the decision involves traveling abroad primarily to India and Thailand in order to receive such hospital care which they require.

For those self-insured, underinsured, or not insured at all, the desperation of receiving medical care without sacrificing homes or assets in the process is plausible, since costs of similar procedures in South Asia range from 75% - 80% less than in the United States. But now U.S. based corporations have entered the arena as well by encouraging employees to go to India and Thailand via cash incentives, free airfare and hotel stays with no co-pays due on the final bill.

Yet, just as with any large purchase consumers must look beyond the fancy advertisements and read the fine print with a Buyer Beware mentality. Americans have become quite adept at learning what to look for when dealing with car dealerships when purchasing an automobile and with computer retailers when purchasing a new computer. But it has taken many years to educate consumers as to their rights and protections under the law and what to do when something does go wrong.

The term “medical tourism” has been inaccurately applied to what is essentially the offshoring of patients of the U.S. healthcare system to foreign countries, in order to appeal to potential customers who are really medical patients. The term was invented by the media and it stuck and is now being used as a marketing tool. Deceptive in its concept, it is an implication that a patient can go sightseeing before or after a serious hospital procedure in that foreign country. But for those who are more scrupulous it remains difficult to get the necessary information needed to make a reasoned decision on whether to have surgery performed, let alone halfway around the world.

There are now organizations being touted as medical tourism agencies that have cropped up throughout the U.S. in order to facilitate such care overseas for individual patients as well as to serve as a clearinghouse for corporations wishing to outsource their employees’ healthcare with them in tow. These groups include MedSolution, GlobalChoice Healthcare, IndUShealth, Planet Healthcare and Med Retreat, to name just a few.

And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so f

For those self-insured, underinsured, or not insured at all, the desperation of receiving medical care without sacrificing homes or assets in the process is plausible, since costs of similar procedures in South Asia range from 75% - 80% less than in the United States. But now U.S. based corporations have entered the arena as well by encouraging employees to go to India and Thailand via cash incentives, free airfare and hotel stays with no co-pays due on the final bill.

Yet, just as with any large purchase consumers must look beyond the fancy advertisements and read the fine print with a Buyer Beware mentality. Americans have become quite adept at learning what to look for when dealing with car dealerships when purchasing an automobile and with computer retailers when purchasing a new computer. But it has taken many years to educate consumers as to their rights and protections under the law and what to do when something does go wrong.

The term “medical tourism” has been inaccurately applied to what is essentially the offshoring of patients of the U.S. healthcare system to foreign countries, in order to appeal to potential customers who are really medical patients. The term was invented by the media and it stuck and is now being used as a marketing tool. Deceptive in its concept, it is an implication that a patient can go sightseeing before or after a serious hospital procedure in that foreign country. But for those who are more scrupulous it remains difficult to get the necessary information needed to make a reasoned decision on whether to have surgery performed, let alone halfway around the world.

There are now organizations being touted as medical tourism agencies that have cropped up throughout the U.S. in order to facilitate such care overseas for individual patients as well as to serve as a clearinghouse for corporations wishing to outsource their employees’ healthcare with them in tow. These groups include MedSolution, GlobalChoice Healthcare, IndUShealth, Planet Healthcare and Med Retreat, to name just a few.

And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so

The term “medical tourism” has been inaccurately applied to what is essentially the offshoring of patients of the U.S. healthcare system to foreign countries, in order to appeal to potential customers who are really medical patients. The term was invented by the media and it stuck and is now being used as a marketing tool. Deceptive in its concept, it is an implication that a patient can go sightseeing before or after a serious hospital procedure in that foreign country. But for those who are more scrupulous it remains difficult to get the necessary information needed to make a reasoned decision on whether to have surgery performed, let alone halfway around the world.

There are now organizations being touted as medical tourism agencies that have cropped up throughout the U.S. in order to facilitate such care overseas for individual patients as well as to serve as a clearinghouse for corporations wishing to outsource their employees’ healthcare with them in tow. These groups include MedSolution, GlobalChoice Healthcare, IndUShealth, Planet Healthcare and Med Retreat, to name just a few.

And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so

There are now organizations being touted as medical tourism agencies that have cropped up throughout the U.S. in order to facilitate such care overseas for individual patients as well as to serve as a clearinghouse for corporations wishing to outsource their employees’ healthcare with them in tow. These groups include MedSolution, GlobalChoice Healthcare, IndUShealth, Planet Healthcare and Med Retreat, to name just a few.

And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so

And with more and more corporations adding select foreign hospitals as Preferred Providers to their employees’ health insurance plans, medical tourism companies handle the paperwork and travel arrangements for their employees. Other countries of destination include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and South Africa.

However, it is at this point that the patient needs to start their own due diligence. There is usually a requirement by most U.S. healthcare insurance providers for patients to get second opinions for most complicated surgeries in the U.S., but not so for offshore surgeries. And the list of surgeries which are being sent offshore are indeed medically necessary but confusingly being reported to the media as elective. But you can determine for yourself whether or not the following are elective procedures: cardiac bypass, cardiac stent implantation, cardiac angioplasty, knee replacement, hip replacement, mastectomy, hysterectomy, chemotherapy, eye surgery, vascular surgery, among others.

And as the medical tourism agency is only an intermediary between the client and the hospital as well as between hotels and airlines they do not provide any liability in the event that there is a medical complication or there is a mishap at the destination hospital. Furthermore, there are fees which could arise not documented by an employer nor agency which could require additional expenses upon the patient’s arrival. And as a conduit between patient and hospital, the medical tourism business remains an unregulated industry in the U.S., without licensing requirements and with most managed by non-medical personnel.

Similarly, and unbeknownst to most U.S. patients is that the healthcare industry in India is highly unregulated. It was only in 2006 that regulations regarding the medical device industry, which includes surgical devices such as cardiac stents and orthopedic implants for use in hip and knee replacements, was mandated. Such call for regulation from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) only came about as the result of discovered defective drug eluting cardiac stents in 2004. And although hospitals have the option of applying for accreditation through the Joint International Commission established in 1999, a subsidiary of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, used for hospitals in the U.S., there is no such requirement to do so.

As of 2006 there are five hospitals in India which have JCI accreditation, renewable every three years. They include the three facilities of the Apollo Hospital group, the Shruff Eye Hospital and the Wockhardt Hospital. The Bumrungrad International in Bangkok is Thailand’s sole JCI hospital. Singapore has over a dozen JCI hospitals however, and the Philippines has one. But the JCI accreditation only applies primarily to hospital management which although includes procedures to reduce risk of infection and disease and to ensure patient safety, it has no jurisdiction over the actual physicians performing surgical procedures.

The patient is provided limited information other than an introductory phone call to the intended physician and having medical records electronically sent to the doctor or hospital via the internet by the medical tourism agency. The patient has a choice of physicians, but unlike in the U.S. where there is easy acces