Overseas, Under The Knife

Relaxing on the beach isn’t the only reason to go abroad these days. Increasingly, Americans are traveling to foreign countries for “medical tourism” – electing to receive hospital treatment in a foreign country. The majority of medical tourists seek lower-cost medical procedures due to poor or no insurance coverage in their home country. But the deep discounts on medical care in foreign countries have attracted many Americans to travel abroad for high-risk operations like heart surgery. Indeed, to save money, some insurers are offering their subscribers stipends to have medical procedures performed outside of the country. However, as the authors point out, it is difficult to know whether getting a risky operation performed overseas is safe. The authors claim that there is currently no way accurately to assess the difference between the quality of health care in the US and abroad. But they do recommend many reforms the US medical community might undertake to make such a comparison possible. One suggestion is to have foreign hospitals participate in comparative performance tests. A contentious recommendation, but if it works, it would show whether the US' exorbitant health care costs are worth it. – YaleGlobal