Although the dust has yet to settle on the recent healthcare reform battle, those involved with medical tourism see President Obama’s triumph as a boom for the industry. Many medical tourism facilitators and overseas hospitals are already preparing themselves for what they believe will be an era of significant medical tourism growth over the next few years.
Is this an overly optimistic assessment of how things will play out? Or are there solid reasons for believing medical tourism will benefit from healthcare reform?
While healthcare reform legislation includes many positive provisions such as:
• Universal healthcare coverage (at least in theory)
• Waiving of Pre-existing Condition Clauses
• Eliminating annual and life time limits
The fact is many experts believe these provisions will burden an already comatose healthcare system with higher costs and increased bureaucracy, leading to:
• Longer waiting times due to a combination of increased insured patient volume and a shortage of doctors, thus, encouraging people towards medical tourism.
• Increased bureaucracy and paperwork to resolve insurance/coverage issues, making people opt for a faster and better service such as medical tourism.
• More US hospitals pulling out of Medicare due to program spending cuts which could drive more patients overseas.
• More US insurance companies and employers will implement Medical tourism as a cost savings approach because of increased costs of health insurance.
• Uncertainties regarding insurance coverage for dental treatments may spur more people to go abroad for these types of procedures.
Why will healthcare costs soar? For one, waiving pre-existing condition clauses and making insurance premiums the same for healthy and sick people will drive health insurance costs up dramatically, making employers and insurers more interested in offering medical tourism as an option to keep costs down.
What does this mean for employers, insurance carriers and patients? It means that they are going to have to look seriously at ways to reduce their overall healthcare costs. Medical tourism has already proven itself as a viable solution for self-pay patients looking to lower their healthcare costs without sacrificing quality. It seems likely that healthcare reform will push corporate America to do the same.
