Destination Wedding? No - Destination Surgery!

                      Surgery - the Emerging Outsourcing Frontier

Next time you need that gall bladder surgery, coronary bypass or other health procedure, your insurer may ply you with financial incentives to get you to have the operation outside of the United States. For example, a heart bypass costs between $10,000 - 18,500 if you have it in India, Thailand or Singapore. Stateside, it will set you back $130,000.

As employers re-negotiate health care benefits packages, some may insist on medical travel unless you want to pay some steeper deductibles or plan costs. In this situation, outsourcing is triggering the work (i.e., the patients) to come to the offshore firm.

This trend may take some time to gain material uptake in the marketplace. Employers with unionized work forces are already spooked about offshore job losses and they will fight these moves. The fact that U.S. patients might lose the right to sue for medical malpractice when using certain overseas physicians or facilities could be another deal breaker.

That said, quality of care in the few facilities offering this is rated well for now and this will need to be closely monitored and adhered to if these sorts of programs are to take off.

Will we see either Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain recommend this during their election campaigning? Doubtful.

For more info, see: The Economist, March 24, 2008, "Outsourcing the Patients".