health Insurance

Robin Cook knows how to discover the latest scare in medicine. Mr. Cook, a physician educated at Harvard, is author of over a dozen medical thrillers such as "Coma" and "Bud", which are expected pandemics, anthrax attacks and the black market for organs. "Foreign body", published this month, that's the next big thing: medical tourism.Central the plot is the story of Maria Hernandez, a woman of the working class American who travels to New Delhi for a hip replacement could not afford to return home back. Unfortunately, they and other medical tourists die under mysterious circumstances. The fate of Mrs. Hernandez contrast to that of another American health tourist authority, Robin Steele. Mr. Steele, a real patient traveled recently to the chain of Wockhardt hospital in India for heart surgery. Not only he is in good shape, but he also enjoyed a holiday afterwards and saved several thousand dollars to the tragedy may sell books boot.Mrs Hernandez, but the good health of Mr. Steele is more typical. The future of health care, long one of the local companies, which promises to be increasingly global.

In the coming years, the world is likely to bring much more investment, medical staff and patients crossing borders, economic benefits and increased access to care and see if they do it. Even a modest increase in global medical tourism could reflect a strong catalyst for government bureaucracies and sclerotic American organizations, health maintenance, on what they do. You can even use the introduction of competition in the private health care in the United States and elsewhere.Globalisation not new in medicine. Outsourcing transcription of the recording and remote doctors' notes and X-ray analysis are continuing to develop. Jagdish Bhagwati, an economist at Columbia University, believes that the relocation of, for example, could save, customer service and claims processing only $ 70000000000 to 75000000000 America per year. In recent years leading American hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins affiliates in the Middle East and Asia have established.


Some wealthy patients have always traveled for medical care luxury. Denis Cortese, director of the Mayo Clinic in rural Minnesota, observes, that "we have been the world in a hundred years." Several years ago, the British began to weary of waiting for elective surgery heading overseas to get joints replaced or cosmetic surgery, sometimes at the expense of the government. Recently, shorter queues in the NHS and restrictions such reimbursements have undermined trend.However, world-trotting patients only filled a niche. What makes people excited today is the promise of a boom in mass medical tourism is preparing as a much larger group of middle-class Americans to venture to take the plunge. A report last month, published by Deloitte, a consulting firm, predicts that the number of Americans traveling abroad, an increase in the treatment of 750,000 last year to reach over 6 million in 2010 and 10 million by the year 2012 (see Figure appreciated.) The authors state that this exodus will be worthwhile 21000000000 $ per year to condemn the developing world within four years in prison. Funded by the state of Europe is still not giving to remain patient every reason to be home, but even there, private patients may start to travel more, because it is cheaper and easier to get treatment abroad.

Asian hospital chains stand to be the big winners, as their rising stars, such as Singapore's Parkway Health, look for foreign patients. Modern Bumrungrad Hospital of Thailand in Bangkok already sees tens of thousands of Americans each year. It just opened a new extension, designed to treat foreign patients by 6000, ensuring it makes the world's largest private hospital. The rise in American patients to hospitals has convinced Vishal Bali, Wockhardt in India, the head of the chain, now medical travel "really reach a turning point." Not everything is so exuberant. Paul Mango, lead author of a study by McKinsey, a consulting company denies claims wild-eyed, that millions of patients who are traveling abroad. But he predicts that the future of medical travel is bright, and that may in the long run even Regina Herzlinger of Harvard Business School, broadly agrees "largely dispel the idea that taking care of health is a purely local service. "" The travel insurance market is a bit exaggerated today, but the economy dictates it to be huge over time. if a supplier very high prices and uneven quality has created an opening for nimble rivals "that the provider, the health system in the United States, a $ 2400000000000 colossus in desperate need of reform.