Your next heart surgery could well be in Bangkok — but don’t worry, it’ll be “in network.” How your health care is taking wing …

“This doesn’t look like a hospital,” says Ruben Toral, showing me around. “It feels more like a hotel or an upscale mall.” After studying the gleaming lobby of Bumrungrad International for a minute or two, I’m inclined to agree. Americans in shorts recline across from Arab couples in flowing white dishdashas and black abayas, the latter accessorized with designer handbags and sunglasses. We’re in Bangkok in August, when even the asphalt is overripe and malodorous, but the only scent inside is a faint whiff of espresso from the Starbucks in the corner.

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Bumrungrad International hospital in Bangkok is becoming a popular destination for international travelers in search of low-cost medical procedures, particularly among Americans who lack comprehensive health insurance and Europeans who are unhappy with long waiting times at home. Bumrungrad treated 450,000 foreign patients last year – more than any other hospital in the world. Ruben Toral, Bumrungrad’s marketing director, says that medical tourism will eventually lead to medical outsourcing. “Your corporation, your insurer, your government could send you [to Bumrungrad] for surgery and make significant savings.” However, the trend is creating a backlash among physicians in the West, many of who voice serious concerns about the cleanliness of Thai hospital facilities and the level competency among Thai health care professionals.

Bumrungrad Hospital offers a rhinoplasty (nose job) procedure for approximately US$2,500. The same procedure in the UK will cost about US$5,000 while in the United States will cost about US$6,000. Breast augmentation is an extremely popular procedure in the US and can range from US$5,000 to US$8,000 while the cost in the UK is about US$6,500. You can have the same procedure done at Bumrungrad Hospital for US$2,250.

Bangkok Phuket Hospital, on the island of Phuket, can perform a Heart Bypass surgery for approximately US$12,000. The price for the same procedure in the US begins at US$66,000 and can easily rise to US$150,000 and in the UK the procedure can actually cost upwards of US$200,000.

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The best part about treatment in Bangkok, Thailand is that you enjoy world-class medical advantages at a fraction of the cost in comparison with destinations like US, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Here are some examples of your medical price savings as well as some of your medical questions answered as such;

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG) is the reason for 55.7% of hospital stays.

Next on the list is angioplasty, accounting for 48.7% of hospital stays.

And what do you save when you get treated in Bangkok, Thailand? If you come for bypass surgery, you will save over 75%, even after taking airfares and local stay into consideration.

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By and large, medical tourists are travelling for specialty medical and surgical services. The recent surge in the popularity of plastic surgery, however, has led to a new wave of medical tourists and headlines like “Sun, sea and surgery” or “Scalpel tourism” have helped create buzz for this emerging phenomenon. Medical tourism destinations such as Bangkok, Thailand promotes the benefit of high-quality medical care as just one more reason to visit the kingdom.

Elective out-patient procedures like check-ups, dental care, LASIK are becoming increasingly popular and there is a growing interest on the part of the tourism industry to include these services as part of their travel packages. Higher intensity medical services, like spinal and cardiac surgery, pose a bigger challenge because these medical services are not as easily packaged and require significantly more knowledge about medicine.
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Medical tourism is a relatively new term to describe a growing number of people worldwide that travel abroad for healthcare. Why these people travel and for what varies, but essentially there are two types of medical tourists – the leisure tourist that incorporates a visit to the doctor for some minor treatment, as part of his or her vacation, and the tourist travelling specifically for medical treatment.
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A growing number of tourists to Thailand are combining holidays with health care. In 2004, 600,000 foreign patients sought treatment in Bangkok, Thailand, a figure that is expected to grow by 66 percent in 2006 with approximately one million foreign patients travelling to Bangkok, Thailand for medical treatment and health services.

With world class surgeons, highly esteemed research professors, and the latest technology, Thailand’s medical services add a new dimension to its long tradition of hospitality to foreign visitors.

The Thai medical profession is probably one of the most advanced in the region. Successive governments have invested in ensuring the education and training Thai doctors receive is parallel to that offered elsewhere in the region. Many doctors undertake specialist training abroad, particularly the United States and Europe and are at least equally as well qualified as physicians in the west – often more so. Many large private hospitals are also staffed with translators to assist foreigners in communicating with medical professionals.

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Medical tourism is a growing segment of Thailand’s tourism and health-care sectors. In 2005, one Bangkok hospital took in 150,000 treatment seekers from abroad. In 2006, medical tourism was projected to earn the country 36.4 billion baht.

Thailand offers everything from cardiac surgery to organ transplants at a price much lower than the US or Europe. Thai medicine also features a higher, more personalized level of nursing care than westerners are accustomed to receiving in hospitals at home. One patient who received a coronary artery bypass surgery at Bumrungrad International hospital in Bangkok said the operation cost him US$12,000 (8,200 euros), as opposed to the $100,000 (68,000 euros) he estimated the operation would have cost him at home.

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