Care Tourism

Indianapolis :

It is a sign of the times – Americans shopping for surgery in what is now referred to as “medical tourism.”

One 22-year-old Monticello native is doing just that. Priced out of the American market for weight loss surgery, Amanda Martincich is now looking outside of America and to fellow Hoosiers for help.

Amanda Martincich is considering surgery options out of the country.

“As you can see, I have always been kind of heavy,” Martincich said as she looks through pictures from her childhood.

She feels as though she is fighting a losing battle. Weight loss programs are not working. Family insurance, since her stepfather is self-insured, does not cover gastric bypass surgery, so she made a decision.

“In the U.S., it costs $25,000-40,000. So if insurance doesn’t cover it, it’s too much to come up with,” she said, sitting in her parents Indianapolis home.

So she started shopping for surgery online. That led her to a company called Medko, which matched her up with surgery program in Chile.

“I am willing to try anything unless something stands out that says that is not safe or not legit,” she added.

Medkohealth is a program designed to match people with less expensive surgical options elsewhere in the world. Frustration has led her to this point.

“People are like, ‘Get a job, save money.’ People won’t hire people who are overweight,” Amanda admitted.

So, living in America, she is looking to South America for help.

“If this country was so great, then me being able to find insurance would not be so difficult,” she said.

Amanda wants to get a degree in criminal justice, but first things first. That means setting up a website to help raise the money she needs.

“46 people have viewed it, but only one has donated,” she noted as she looked at her fundraising website.

To her, the situation she finds herself in is criminal, but it is what it is.

“I’m going to go with medical tourism. I don’t have any choice. I will just have to come up with the money,” she noted.

Amanda had hoped to leave for surgery this week, but obviously, funding is still a big problem. She has two options, one in Mexico and the other in Chile, which is where the company Medko is based. She says the surgery that would cost her up to $40,000 here in America will cost up to $13,000 in this program. She believes she will be able to use her primary care physician here in Indianapolis for follow up following the surgery.

If you decide to shop around – whether its inside the country or outside – medical experts recommend you first “check with your insurer.” Don’t make a big bill even larger by shopping for care outside your health insurer’s network.

Also, press for details. Make sure you have the full picture of potential bills you may face from the surgeon, anesthesiologist and the surgery center.

Finally, think hard about quality. Don’t weigh just price. Consider the surgeon’s experience or the hospital’s infection and re-admission rate.

source: http://www.wthr.com / Wthr.com – Indiana’s news leader / by Kevin Rader , Indianapolis / June 03rd, 2014

Chennai :

One of the multitude of Indian emigrant doctors, Paul Ramesh moved to Britain in the 1990s, keen to get the best surgical training and earn a generous pay packet.

Today he is still treating Westerners — but in hospital beds back in Chennai, his south Indian hometown in Tamil Nadu state.

(In Chennai, known as India’s…)

“When I came back it was quite exceptional to return. Now it’s the rule,” the 46-year-old told AFP at the city’s Apollo hospital, soon after performing a heart transplant on a woman from the United States.

In Chennai, known as India’s healthcare capital, medical workers describe a “reverse brain drain” as homegrown doctors return from the US and Europe — at the same time as the city develops as a top budget destination for medical tourists.

While the number of Indian doctors abroad remains substantial, Apollo staff say their national hospital chain now gets 300 applications annually from those working in Britain alone, encouraged by improved living standards and better medical technology at home.

Traditionally drawn to the West to boost their expertise and earnings, doctors also cited tightening salaries under Britain’s National Health Service and increasingly tough US healthcare regulations as factors luring them back.

“The trend is reversing,” said M. Balasubramanian, president of the Indian Medical Association in Tamil Nadu.

“More corporate hospitals are coming up, especially in Chennai. Now (doctors) have an opportunity to use their expertise in their own place… and pull the patients from abroad also,” he said.

Inside the Apollo, with a lobby bustling more like a marketplace than a typical hospital, K.P. Kosygan has just carried out a double knee replacement on an elderly Kenyan patient.

The consultant orthopaedic surgeon came back from Britain in 2011 and said there was “a regular stream of doctors coming back”.

“Certainly when I left India there were not many joint replacement centres or surgeons in India who could train us,” he said.

Now doctors want to “share our experience we have gained across the globe,” he said — adding that many were also pulled back to look after ageing parents, in a country where family ties are paramount.

As well as treating Indians, Kosygan said he now treats patients “from almost every corner of the world” who are drawn by the cheap costs.