Medical Travel – The Answer to Your Healthcare Needs
Published in the December/January Issue of the American Society of Monterrey (ASOMO) Newsletter
Monterrey, Mexico, October 30th, 2009
Medical Travel, also known as Medical Tourism, is basically the globalization of healthcare. As technology and information flows are shrinking our world, healthcare is becoming universal. This year, more than one hundred thousand people from all over the world will travel away from home seeking healthcare. Their reasons range from wanting access to higher quality and more advanced technologies (typical of patients from developing countries traveling to the U.S.), to needing quicker access (common in Europeans and Canadians), to requiring far less expensive treatments (U.S. patients going abroad). Today, this constitutes an unstoppable trend that is gaining additional acceptance as patients from all over the world find more and better options for their healthcare needs in places they never thought possible. In the case of Americans looking for high quality medical or dental care at great value, neighboring countries have shown to have private healthcare systems which exceed expectations.
When one thinks of the term Medical Travel, often times the first thing that comes to mind is a desperate patient traveling far away from home to receive a necessary heart or orthopedic surgery. However, there exists yet another side of Medical Travel that is gaining popularity among Americans in which the main purpose is not a lifesaving surgery, but instead opportunities to enhance one’s appearance and even relax in the meantime. Plastic and Cosmetic procedures are much more expensive in the U.S. and Canada than elsewhere, which is why thousands of Americans and Canadians are looking for alternatives abroad.
The great debate over United States healthcare reform continues to move forward as opposing sides argue over the best solution to this nationwide dilemma. Everybody seems to acknowledge that there is definitely something wrong with the current U.S. healthcare system, while proponents of Canadian style socialized medicine are also constantly reminded that it has its flaws as well. In the meantime this free market has found its way for hundreds of thousands from both countries to look at options in developing countries as a means to solve their own particular healthcare needs. This is a wake-up call for all parties involved, policy makers, healthcare providers, insurers and patients alike.
Both the short time to come up with the money, and the very high cost of medical treatment, bring a huge conflict between illnesses and uninsured citizens. This growing part of the population faces a choice between giving up life or economic wellbeing for their loved ones. More and more, Americans are discovering what so far only residents close to the border with Mexico have been doing. Medical Travel is not only for dentistry and cosmetic surgery.
