Patients Beyond Borders Fourth Edition: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Travel

By Josef Woodman

Patients Beyond Borders is the world's most trusted source of information for patients seeking high-quality affordable healthcare around the world. Author Josef Woodman covers the most-traveled destinations for specialties such as dentistry, cosmetic treatment, orthopedics, bariatrics, IVF/fertility, vision, hearing, health checkups and more

• Language: English
• Publisher: Calvander Communications, Inc
• Release date: Jan 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578623856

Josef Woodman

As CEO of Patients Beyond Borders, Josef Woodman has spent the past 15 years researching and vetting international options for quality, affordable medical care. He has met and consulted with ministries and key stakeholders in the world's leading medical travel destinations, touring more than 200 medical facilities in 35 countries. Co-founder of MyDailyHealth (1998) and Ventana Communications (1987), Woodman's pioneering background in publishing, healthcare and technology has allowed him to compile a wealth of information and knowledge about international medical care, telemedicine, wellness, integrative medicine and consumer-directed healthcare. Woodman has lectured at the UCLA School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Duke Fuqua School of Business, Scientific American and the International Society for Travel Medicine. He has keynoted and moderated conferences on medical tourism and global healthcare in 20 countries. He has appeared in numerous print and broadcast media, including The Economist, The New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Fox News, Huffington Post, Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Woodman is an outspoken advocate of affordable, high-quality medical and preventative care for healthcare consumers worldwide.

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Introduction

Beginnings

Despite all that has changed since the first edition of Patients Beyond Borders hit the bookstore shelves in 2007, I still think back to what started it all: when my father, age 72 at the time (post-Medicare but pre-Obamacare and Trumpcare), announced he was heading off to Mexico for extensive dental work. I well remember my first reaction upon hearing his plans: a mixture of bewilderment and fear, then resignation, knowing that despite my protestations, he was going anyway.

In spite of my concerns—some of them quite real—I was pleased to report a happy ending. Dad and his wife, Alinda, selected a US-trained dentist in Puerto Vallarta and spent around us$14,000, which included two weeks touring the Pacific coast. They returned tanned and smiling, Dad with new pearly whites and Alinda with an impromptu skin resurfacing.

Those same procedures would have cost them $31,000 in the US. Today, the price tag would total more than $50,000.

After his treatment, when I told the story of my father’s trip, most friends responded with the same shock and disbelief that I had felt initially. When I explained the quality of care and the savings, more often than not those same folks followed me out the door, asking for Dad’s email address. I even had an airport customs agent abandon his post and follow me to the boarding gate, seeking additional information for his son who, he had just learned, required heart surgery.

Not long afterward, I developed an infected root canal and found myself following my father’s example. My research led me abroad for extraction and implant work. Although pleasantly surprised at the quality of care, the prices, and the all-around good experience of the trip, I nonetheless made a number of mistakes, creating unnecessary difficulties and discomforts for myself. Had I done some simple things differently, my trip would have been more successful and more economical.

In seeking additional data on medical travel, I found no reliable source of information. It seemed everybody had something to sell or a political axe to grind. Available books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports were more like tourists’ brochures than health travel references.

Thus, the idea for Patients Beyond Borders was born: a well-researched guide, written in plain English, that would offer an impartial look at contemporary medical travel while helping prospective patients ask the right questions and make informed choices.

More than a decade later, Patients Beyond Borders is now in its Fourth Edition, along with a website of the same name. So very much has changed, largely to the advantage of the discerning healthcare consumer. Patients now have access to thousands—not merely a handful—of high-quality, US-accredited international hospitals and clinics. Trustworthy sources of information—print, online, and mobile—help patients research vital information and make better-informed purchase decisions.

The number of medical tourists has increased nearly twenty-fold since the First Edition of this book, to some 24 million patients now crossing borders worldwide each year. More than two million are North Americans, and the overwhelming majority returns happily to tell about it—often with hefty savings in their pockets to show for their efforts. If it’s true there’s safety in numbers, then those who have harbored doubts in the past can take comfort in the successes of these past pioneering patients.

As we contemplate our options in a chronically overburdened US healthcare environment, nearly all of us will eventually find ourselves seeking alternatives to costly or heavily triaged treatments, either for ourselves or for our loved ones. America is in the midst of a tectonic shift in global healthcare services: government investment, industry partnerships, and increased media attention have spawned a new industry—medical tourism—bringing with it a host of encouraging new choices, ranging from dental care and cosmetic surgery to some of the more costly procedures, such as hip replacements, weight loss procedures and heart surgery. Advances in telemedicine—particularly remote diagnostics and radiology, with remote surgery on the horizon—help patients and specialists alike determine if and when to cross borders for care, and to better manage themselves when they return home.

Those patients who take the time to become informed about our changing healthcare world will be pleasantly surprised by a smorgasbord of affordable, high-quality, American-accredited medical options abroad. Those who do not may find themselves grappling with an ungainly, prohibitively expensive healthcare system and a growing limitation of choice.

Who Travels for Healthcare?

There is no single type of health traveler. In researching and writing Patients Beyond Borders I talked with wealthy women from Beverly Hills who, despite their affluence, prefer the quality of treatment and attention they receive in Costa Rica or Thailand to medical care California-style. I met a hardworking couple from Wisconsin who, facing the prospect of refinancing their home for a $65,000 hip operation here in the US, headed to India instead. I interviewed a Vietnam vet who had wearied of long waits and red tape. He said bon voyage to this country’s ever-deteriorating healthcare system and headed overseas for treatment. One enterprising patient drove more than 3600 miles from his home in Anchorage, Alaska to the dental tourism town of Los Algodones, Mexico, saving more than $40,000 over his quote in Alaska. The stories pour into our offices weekly.

In fact, as the global population ages, I increasingly encounter individuals who have opted to pull up stakes altogether, to settle into lifestyles less expensive, perhaps less encumbered. It’s no accident that some of the leading retirement destinations—Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Thailand, to name a few—are also healthcare hubs renown for high-quality medical care.

From these patients’ experiences, and many more like them, you will learn when and how health travel abroad might meet your medical and financial needs. And you will become a more informed healthcare consumer—both here and abroad—for your- self and for your family and friends.

Patient Experiences: Margaret S. and Doug S.

Margaret S., a patient from Santa Ana, California, was quoted us$6,600 for a tooth extraction, two implants, and two crowns. Restorative dental work is not covered by most health plans. Margaret found herself among the estimated 125 million Americans without dental coverage. Through a friend, she learned about Escazú, Costa Rica, known for its excellent dental and cosmetic surgery clinics. Margaret got the same treatment in Costa Rica for $2,600. Her dentist was a US-trained oral surgeon who used state-of-the-art instrumentation and top-quality materials. Add in airfare, lodging, meals, and other travel costs, and this savvy global patient came out way ahead.

Doug S., a small-business owner from Wisconsin, journeyed with his wife, Anne, to Chennai, India, for a double hip resurfacing procedure that would have cost more than $55,000 in the US. The total bill—including travel for him and his wife, lodging, meals, and two-week recuperation in a five-star beach hotel—was $14,000. We were treated like royalty, said Doug, and I’m riding a bicycle for the first time in six years. We could not have afforded this operation in the US. ■

You Deserve an Impartial Perspective

The growing phenomenon of medical tourism, or international health travel, has received a good deal of wide-eyed attention of late. While one media source or research group giddily touts the fun-’n-sun side of treatment abroad, another issues dire warnings about filthy hospitals, shady treatment practices, and procedures gone bad. As with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between.

In short, I have found the term medical tourism something of a misnomer, often leading patients to emphasize the recreational more than the clinical in their quest for healthcare abroad. Unlike much of the hype that surrounds contemporary health travel, Patients Beyond Borders focuses more on your health than on your travel preferences. Thus, throughout this book, you’ll see few references to the terms medical tourism or health tourism. In the same way business travelers do not normally consider themselves leisure tourists, you’ll likely begin to think more of your medical welfare than nights spent in Margaritaville when planning your medical journey. My research, including countless facility visits and interviews, has convinced me that with diligence, perseverance, and good information, patients considering traveling abroad for treatment have legitimate, safe choices, not to mention an opportunity to save thousands of dollars when compared to the same treatment in the US. In speaking with hundreds of patients who have returned from successful treatment overseas and who have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback, I was persuaded to write this impartial, scrutinizing guide to becoming an informed international patient. I designed this book to help readers reach their own conclusions about whether and when to seek treatment abroad.

What Exactly Is Medical Tourism?

In 2019, nearly two million Americans packed their bags and headed overseas for just about every imaginable type of medical treatment: restorative dentistry in Mexico, hair transplant surgery in Turkey, heart valve replacements in Thailand, hip resurfacing in India, proton therapy in Korea, fertility treatments in Israel, facelifts in Hungary. At the time of this writing, at least 50 countries cater to the international health traveler, with some 24 million patients worldwide visiting hospitals and clinics each year in countries other than their own.

If the notion of complex medical procedures in far-flung lands seems intimidating, don’t feel alone. That’s why I wrote this book, drawing from the varied experiences of hundreds of patients who, for dozens of reasons, have beaten a well-worn path to successful treatments abroad.

Global Healthcare: A World in Flux

On a recent visit to one of Seoul, South Korea’s most prominent international hospitals, the CEO insisted on showing me a prostate surgery performed by a doctor sitting at a robotics device 30 feet away from the patient. The implications were clear: one day soon, we’ll see top doctors and surgeons in South Korea and Thailand performing everything from health checkups to heart surgeries in Turkey and the US. We’ll see patients in Dubai with wireless-enabled pacemakers monitored by healthcare facilities in India. Just as we can go online to search, price-shop, and purchase books, appliances, real estate, and financial instruments, rising transparency in healthcare, coupled with new plug and play approaches to treatment, will allow greater consumer options regarding our medical treatments as well.

We are also at long last seeing a shift in focus in the healthcare world, one from hospitals as fix-it shops for the sick to a more preventive approach, particularly around obesity, tobacco, and other poor lifestyle behaviors that spawn a host of serious and often chronic medical conditions. Leading medical facilities are increasingly adding wellness centers, complementary and integrative medicine (CAM), executive health screenings, and a host of preventive programs aimed at keeping people well rather than merely treating the sick.

In brief, we’re in the midst of vast and exciting changes in the way we think about and purchase medical services. Medical tourism is an important component of a new international healthcare ecosystem, where not only geographic but research, technology, and patient access walls are coming down, to the great benefit of you, the enlightened healthcare consumer. Any patient who is not merely a passive follower of doctor’s orders will recognize and take advantage of these profound clinical and social changes, to great and lasting benefit. ■

Why Go Abroad for Medical Care?

Cost savings. Most people like to get the most for their dollar, or kroner, or sterling. The single biggest reason Americans travel to other countries for medical treatment is the opportunity to save money. Depending upon the country and type of treatment, uninsured and underinsured patients (as well as those seeking elective care) can realize 15–85 percent savings over the cost of treatment in the US.

The quest for cost savings is not a strictly US phenomenon. While Americans are crossing borders—by plane, auto, and sometimes on foot—into Mexico for dental and cosmetic treatments, Germans, Swiss, and Austrians head to Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic for treatments not covered by government-sponsored health plans. Similarly, patients from the UK fly to India to take advantage of savings up to 90 percent over prices of elective procedures at home.

As Millennials and Gen Xers become senior boomers and as baby boomers live even longer than expected, costs of healthcare and prescriptions now devour nearly 30 percent of retirement and pre-retirement incomes. With increasing options in top-quality treatments at deep discounts overseas, informed patients are finding creative alternatives abroad. As one successful health traveler put it, I took out my credit card instead of a second mortgage on my home.

Quality and price disparities occur within national borders as well. As the internet increasingly allows patients to search and compare healthcare costs and quality, domestic medical travel is on the rise, whereby a patient in rural northern Thailand might travel to Bangkok, one of Thailand’s two main destinations for high-quality specialized care. Similarly, in the United States, corporations such as Lowe’s, PepsiCo, and Walmart have entered into agreements with facilities such as the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins to offer the highest caliber