Source: ABC news
Joy
Guion was
boarding a plane for the first time to fly from her native North
Carolina to Costa Rica, a sun-soaked tourism hot
spot where she would stay in a four-star hotel in Costa Rica with
a personal concierge and a local driver.
But the
39-year-old utility worker from Hickory, N.C., wasn’t going to Costa
Rica for vacation. At 5-foot-9 and 283 pounds, Joy Guion has
“severe chronic obesity” and a family history of diabetes and heart disease,
and she was headed to a Costa Rican hospital for weight
loss surgery.
Gary
Harwell, a
65-year-old retired manager who used to work at the same plant as Joy
Guion, accompanied her on the trip to Costa Rica. He was
getting a knee replacement at the same private
hospital in Costa Rica, Hospital Clinica Biblica.
And neither
will have to pay a dime for treatment. Travel expenses, surgeries
and post-op recovery are all being covered by the company they work for.
Joy
Guion and Gary
Harwell work for HSM, a furniture and auto parts
manufacturer in western North Carolina. The company gave Joy
Guion a choice for this surgery: Pay a co-pay in the U.S. or outsource
the procedure abroad for free.
“Nothing
out of my pocket,” Joy Guion said.
Joy
Guion and Gary
Harwell are among a growing wave of Americans frustrated by the rising
costs of the U.S. health care system and heading abroad for medical procedures.
Nearly one million Americans go overseas for procedures every year, according
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is
even a Medical Tourism Association — its core mission of
providing transparent education and awareness about top-of-the-line procedures
and treatments at affordable prices.
Even with
their insurance, both Gary Harwell and Joy
Guion said each would have paid $3,000 out of pocket in the U.S. — an
amount Joy Guion said she wouldn’t have been able to afford. But in Costa
Rica, they both pay nothing — their company picks up the bill.
And now,
some American companies are considering outsourcing medical care, dubbed “medical
tourism,” as a health care option.
In the end, HSM said
it saves money. Outsourcing medical care has saved
it nearly $10 million in health care costs over the past five years, according
to the company. Close to 250 of its employees have traveled abroad so far for
medical care, and more are scheduled to go.
And when
the bandages come off, both will get a bonus check for at
least $2,500 from their company, a percentage of the corporate savings
in insurance costs.
While it
all sounds too good to be true, medical experts cautioned that there are
serious concerns about “medical tourism” and having procedures done
overseas. Glenn Cohen, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law
Policy at Harvard University, said there is a risk of complications after
post-op and said there have been documented cases of people dying or developing
infections after having surgeries in foreign countries.
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