Get Your Trip to Costa Rica Paid for

Happy with Their Low Priced Dentures

Patients want to be and feel safe while traveling abroad for affordable health care.  A Treatment Abroad Medical Tourism survey found that 90% of medical tourists are more than satisfied with their procedures.  That statistic includes dental tourists who sought low priced root canals, dentures, or implants.  Although some question the validity of such a high percentage, why wouldn’t that number seem high?  Places like Costa Rica are filling a void in low priced dental care for even simple procedures like dentures, fillings, and physicals.

 

Merging Affordability with Safety in Health Care

When considering safe health care, patients must take into account the doctor, facility, and nature of the procedure.  One wouldn’t want to travel to Costa Rica for low priced dentures only to get an infection and be worse off than before.  However, another facet of safe health care is accessibility.  If you don’t have access to dental care, like nearly 50% of Americans today, your safety may still be in jeopardy.  As dental tourism grows, so too does the visibility of its safety record and the need for that record to remain high.   The safety of dental tourism obviously attracts more patients, but it has also been enticing insurance providers to add it to patients’ coverage.

 

Dental Tourism Provides Unique Coverage Opportunities

A Deloitte Center for Health Solutions report estimates 1.6 million Americans will travel abroad for 30 to 70 percent savings on medical and dental procedures by 2012.  The growth of dental tourism has created a unique opportunity for insurance coverage.  Insurance providers can take advantage of the large numbers of travelers to Costa Rica and other countries by including dental tourism. 

 

Perhaps insurance providers can also catalyze another level of growth for dental tourism with coverage that both enables and encourages patients who currently can't afford the out of pocket expenses of travelling abroad for health care.  Even airfare for the short trip to Costa Rica, compared to India, can put a burden on a budget.  For now, most insurance companies are skeptical or haven't developed a workable model for tapping into medical and dental tourism; but, as more providers include coverage for treatment abroad, there stands the potential for a surge in the numbers of medical and dental tourists.