Jumpstart Your Heart In India

Hidden Costs Of Pacemaker Installation

Aside from the price tag, there are mental and emotional costs associated with pacemaker installation.  Patients must continually be aware of his or her surroundings.  Metal detectors, cell phones, even mp3 players, can affect the performance of pacemakers.  Even in the hospital, MRI scans and therapeutic radiation can disrupt pacemaker operations.  Depending on the timing and magnitude of the disruption, the results could be fatal to the wearer.  Medical tourism, the globalization of medical care to other countries with lower costs of living and labor, offers patients significantly more affordable pacemaker installations.  While the discounted prices ease the financial burden, they do little for the mental or emotional costs.

Best Hospitals for Heart Surgery In India

For matters of the heart, particularly heart surgery, steady hands are critical.  Apollo Hospitals Group and Wockhardt Hospitals are reportedly two of the best hospitals for heart surgery in India.  Each one is staffed with some of the best doctors and staff in the country and equipped with some of the world’s most advanced medical technologies.  One of the ways medical tourism thrives is from outsourcing medical care to countries with low costs of labor.  For example, a leading cardiac surgeon in India makes around $330,000, a fraction of the estimated $5 million he or she would earn in the United States.  Don’t kid yourself, the labor costs of a surgeon anywhere isn’t cheap, but hospitals in India are able to invest the more than $4 million dollar difference into technology and facilities.

Who Is Medical Tourism for, Anyway?

Though reports estimate that medical tourism saves patients 20 to 60 percent or more on most medical and dental procedures, if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it.  If you can’t afford a $4,000 medical bill, saving 70 percent on the cost of your pacemaker installation is irrelevant, because you still can’t afford to pay $6,000 for a $20,000 surgery.  The phenomenon appears to cater to middle and upper classes, while missing the lower class almost completely.  The practice of saving people money for healthcare is well-intentioned, but those who need it most still don’t have it.  On the other hand, some insurance companies are beginning to cover and even prefer medical tourism over the procedures performed domestically, which may mean hope for the poor, but insured.