Traveling for Cheap Health Care Is Just another Sign of Globalization

Medical Tourism in India Takes Outsourcing one Step Further

Hospitals and clinics in the US have been outsourcing back room functions like X-Ray reading, lab testing, and medical transcription activities to India for many years now.  It’s only over the past few years that the scope of this industry has extended to include actual visitations by foreign patients in search of quality yet cheap health care, whether for specialized cardiac surgeries at specialized clinics or newer hip procedures at the best hospitals for hip replacement in India.   

In a lot of ways, this trend is just another facet of the dreaded “globalization” that makes so many in developing countries nervous.  With flattening borders and people from all walks of life able to shop around for better and more cost effective services, this new global order is the reason why the medical tourism trend isn’t going to reverse any time soon.  Like the outsourcing of information technology to India that failed to fizzle out even after hectic lobbying by American senators, the outcry against medical tourism too threatens to run out of steam prematurely for one simple reason - it’s just too advantageous for patients.  

“Cheap Healthcare High Risk” and Other Myths about the Medical Tourism Sector in India

American healthcare officials would like to have you believe that surgeries in developing countries are always riskier than those performed in the US.  While this may be true for some of the newer entrants into the medical tourism arena, it’s an unfounded argument in India.  If anything, heart surgery performed at a reputed institute like Escorts or Wockhardt has a higher success rate than one performed at an American hospital. The other oft-cited argument is that hospitals in developing countries offer less sophisticated and modern procedures.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  Some of the best hospitals for hip replacement in India offer a less invasive hip resurfacing surgery that has the added advantage of decreased post surgery trauma, besides being less expensive than conventional hip replacement surgery. This newer more advanced version has only recently become available in the US.  In fact, the growing influx of foreign patients at some of the best hospitals and facilities for heart care, eye surgery, and hip and knee replacement surgery in India is proof that these myths will remain just that - myths.