Affordable Robotic Prostatectomy Close to Home
Monterrey, Mexico, December 16, 2009
At 3:48 PM Thursday Nov 10th precisely, Continental flight 2012 touched the runway at Mariano Escobedo airport in Monterrey Mexico. After immigration and customs, Chris Moss, almost bumped up with Carlos, a representative of the international patients office at Hospital San Jose TEC, who was there to meet him. Informed shockingly only a few days before, that what had started as just higher-than-normal blood test values was now a fully-grown prostate cancer, Moss, a 57 year old Denver citizen who asked for his real name to remain unmentioned, didn’t know then that he would end up choosing to travel to Monterrey, Mexico for life saving treatment.
On the way to his hotel, Chris was barely able to see the modern, active, and attractive city that welcomed him, as from that very moment everything went very fast, and as things proceeded according to plan, all his wonderings and misgivings faded away and where soon forgotten. Within a day all his incoming medical records were checked, he had undergone additional tests and exams to assess his condition, pre-operatory exams and evaluations were performed, and the time for his Robotic Prostatectomy Surgery was set for 9 am the next day. The three hour, complex surgery started on time at the hands of one of the most renown urology teams in Latin America, and employed the state-of-the-art daVinci surgery system. All in all, Chris’ cancer was being removed with most advanced method the world of medicine knows today.
As technology and information flows are shrinking our world, travel for healthcare is becoming universal. Americans looking for excellent but affordable medical or dental procedures find that neighboring countries have shown to have private healthcare facilities which offer very high quality care at great value. Chris’ true and verifiable story illustrates this point. In 2007 he was diagnosed with probable prostate cancer and advised by his doctor to seek immediate treatment. Although good intentions were present, due to unforeseen circumstances the cancer was not treated with the attention and immediacy it deserved. Two years later Chris was given the news that his PSA levels had risen to a frightening 32, a 10 point increase from his last examination. Knowing that treatment was now extremely critical, Chris made a phone call to Aetna Global Benefits, his employer-provided insurance company. He learned that the prostatectomy surgery he desperately needed would only be covered 80% if performed in the U.S, leaving him with possible medical bills of over $10,000. However, the good news were that he could choose to have his surgery abroad and Aetna would be able to pay 100% of the surgery.
Chris immediately began to examine overseas options, skipping consciously on everything that wouldn’t meet or exceed the quality of care he could receive in Denver, and had several basic additional requirements set in his mind: 1) within budget, 2) as close to home as possible, 3) by an English-speaking staff, 4) with the possibility of remotely consulting with the doctors, finding out about their quality, the facilities and equipment available. As it must have been too much for him to handle in such a haste, it was through a Monterrey-focused medical travel facilitator called Travel For Care that Chris learned about options in Mexico which satisfied all his requirements. Travel For Care immediately provided all information requested, set up a phone consultation between Chris, Dr. López Verdugo’s Urology team, and Hospital San Jose representatives, and immediately booked all arrangements for Chris to proceed with surgery in Monterrey. As Gabriel Senior, CEO of Travel For Care states: “We knew we had no time to lose, Chris needed valuable information to understand his options, realize the value of coming to Monterrey, get an opinion from the urology team, have his insurance agree, and set up his trip to a place he hadn’t heard of before”.
Although the thought of heading outside of one’s home country to receive a medical treatment may seem daunting, several studies in the field are showing that those who have taken the leap have had a very positive experience. As Chris points out: “I have only good things to say about this medical experience. Hospital San José is a modern facility with advanced technology and expert care physicians, my surgeons offered detailed information and professional answers all through the process, and Travel For Care was the valuable one-stop-shop for all my needs, providing continuous assistance and information.” With positive patient experiences such as this one, all the building blocks are in place to make the Medical Travel trend an unstoppable answer to ever-rising costs of healthcare and its consequences in the uninsured and under-insured population. Tens of thousands of happy U.S. patients later, Americans are changing the way they see healthcare abroad.
Travel For Care is an innovative Medical Travel start-up firm headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico, marketing Medical Solutions to American patients looking for elective and non-elective procedures. For more information, please visit www.travelforcare.com
Hospital San José TEC de Monterrey is one of Monterrey's best regarded healthcare institutions, accredited by the Joint Commission International, and part of the Monterrey TEC, Mexico's largest private education system. For more information, please visit www.hsj.com.mx
Contact:
Heather Wicklow
Manager
Travel For Care
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Toll Free: (800) 571-0640
