Employers Pay For Workers To Get Health Care Overseas

Frustrated with rising health care costs, some employers are encouraging their employees to get treatment overseas. The cost savings is so significant that employers can pay for airfare and travel expenses in addition to the surgical procedure, and still have enough left over to reward patients financially for opting to have their surgery performed overseas.

Hospitals warn that if this practice becomes more prevalent, it will become more and more difficult to obtain good health care in this country. Hospitals lose money on patients who are uninsured or who get coverage from government programs like Medicare or Medicaid. They need well-insured, paying patients in order to break even financially. Exporting hospital care overseas may make the problem worse by further driving up health costs.

Patients who seek health care overseas should be aware that they will probably not be protected from malpractice. However, many foreign hospitals have been accredited by an international organization which measures hospital quality using the same standards as those used in the U.S., and are internationally recognized as high-quality institutions. For example, Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand and Apollo Hospitals in India are internationally accredited hospitals.