It’s no question that healthcare is incredibly expensive in the United States. The unfortunate result is that people avoid seeking medical care simply do so because they cannot afford it. But there is another option that has become a popular trend recently – and it’s called medical tourism.
Medical tourism is a practice in which people living in one country travel to another country where healthcare is cheaper in order to receive medical, dental, and/or surgical attention. Because of the high cost of healthcare, many United States citizens practice this. About 2 million Americans a year travel overseas for health care procedures, and in most cases, the entire trip (including the flight, accommodations, and healthcare procedure) costs less altogether than the health procedure would have cost in the United States.
Patients travel overseas to avoid the high cost of healthcare in the United States and to seek higher quality of healthcare as well. The cost savings of medical tourism can be up to 90%. Many medical tourists are immigrants living in the United States that return to their home country for a period of time to receive medical treatment.
Skeptics believe that medical tourism seems too good to be true and that there must be a disadvantage to it, such as lack of safety. However, as long as you do your research and make an effort to understand the local languages and how the medical system in that foreign country operates, medical tourism can be an extremely safe and affordable option.
There are some real risks of medical tourism. Communication may be an issue and receiving care in a country where you do not speak or understand the language can cause misunderstandings among doctors and patients. Depending on the country you choose to seek medical attention in, medications may be of poor quality or even counterfeit. In addition, flying right after surgery can increase the risks of blood clots. These are serious risks to medical tourism but can be avoided if you are careful.
Whether you choose to practice medical tourism or not is completely up to you. But if you don’t want to pay a ridiculous amount of money for your next trip to the dentist, fly to another country and make a vacation out of it.