Medical Tourism TREND – or How to Make a Fortune From US Health Care Stupidity

by Adam Hartung | Jul 19, 2018 | Entrepreneurship, In the Rapids, Innovation, Marketing, Medical

USA health care is ridiculously expensive. It’s good, but no statistics show that US healthcare is better than any other developed country. Nor any better than accredited facilities in large, developing countries. Look at these comparisons according to Medicaltourism.com:

Procedure                         USA cost   India cost in accredited facility
Heart Bypass                    $123,000    $7,900
Heart Valve Replacement $170,000  $10,450
Hip Replacement                $40,364    $7,200
Knee Replacement             $35,000    $6,600
Spinal Fusion                    $110,000   $10,300
Hysterectomy                      $15,400    $3,200
Cornea Replacement          $17,500    $2,800

Over 1/3 of Americans live with the myth that if they need medical care, somehow it will magically happen at no cost. The Affordable Care Act tried to fix that myth by making everyone buy health insurance. But Congress removed that government mandate. So most Americans that don’t have company-sponsored health insurance don’t buy insurance. Their primary source of health insurance is hope. When illness or accident happens these folks end up with extra-ordinary debt. And they can’t eliminate this debt because health care debt doesn’t go away in bankruptcy. So every year more and more people learn that an unexpected health incident means they will spend the rest of their lives paying for medical services that were 10x or 100x what they expected.

This is a trend that will not end soon. Costs keep going up. The political sides are too divided on what to do. And health insurance companies spend literally billions annually to make sure insurance for all (referred to as Medicare for all) never becomes reality.

This trend means there is opportunity. And that has become medical tourism. Literally, flying to foreign countries for medical procedures.

You may say “not me.” But if you have no money in the bank, and you let your health insurance lapse when you lost your last corporate job ended and you entered the gig economy, you could face a very tough situation. The same one almost all farmers face, and most small business owners, since their insurance is unaffordable. And most 1099 contract employees. When you have an unexpected heart attack at age 41 you wake up to hear a hospital admin say “you are alive, but you need surgery. If you want to live, we can do a heart bypass. Just sign this document and you’ll wake up somewhere north of $123,000 in debt.” Which means you’ll lose your house, for sure. Your kids won’t go to college. And you’ll never again buy a new car.

Or you blow out a hip, or knee,playing that Sunday basketball pick-up game – or golf. You’re 50-55, so too young for Medicare. But you lost health insurance years ago. Or you have a minimalistic plan which will cover a fraction of the cost. Finding the cost is $35,000 to $40,000 (or more likely $60,000 at a for-profit US hospital) are you really able to afford this? Or will you spend your life using crutches, or in a wheelchair? Or start an on–line begging campaign from your friends to cover the cost?

Suddenly, being a medical tourist doesn’t sound so unlikely. Saving $30,000 to $100,000 could determine your financial future. This trend was pretty clear back in 2010 when I pointed out that US medical tourists grew from 700,000 in 2007 to 1.2 million in just 3 years. The trend was actually obvious in 2005, when most people laughed at the idea of medical tourism – because they refused to look at the demographic and cost trends.

That’s why medical tourism is already a $20B business. And growing at 18% annually. Some analysts estimate the global market at almost $80B. Demographics are all in favor of future growth. The developed world population is aging. Health care costs are going up. Government ability to pay is going down. Insurers are charging outrageous rates. Fewer people are buying health care, and even fewer are buying “gold plated plans” that match the average plan in 1990. And American health care policies, in particular, keep driving up costs. It is EASY to see that as people can’t afford care at home, so they WILL be making more trips overseas.

There are already companies making the plunge. Some are matching services between patients and medical facilities. Some are building certified medical facilities in places like India, Singapore, Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand, Costa Rica and Mexico. The opportunities are as big as the health industry.

And this trend affects every business. Are you still stuck in the status quo thinking of extremely expensive insurance for employees, or none? Medical tourism offers a plethora of other opportunities. You can offer a bare-bones domestic plan, with augmented insurance to be a medical tourist. Or even a company sponsored plan, with the opportunity for employees to build a health-care bank, and a relationship with a medical tourism company to help employees find providers offshore. And gig-economy employees can drop the idea of domestic coverage (other than bare bones) for a mixed program including offshore insurance.

Fighting the health cost trend in the USA is foolish. Doing nothing hurts your competitiveness. Given the opportunities in medical tourism, are you thinking about how to build on this trend as a new business? Or a way to offer more to full time and 1099 contractors?