Another permutation of medical tourism

February 6th, 2008 by David E. Williams of the Health business blog

In Retiring Abroad May Not Be Paradise the Wall Street Journal explains that moving permanently from the US is not as easy or as inexpensive as it seems. The reasons include difficulties with banking, real estate ownership, and being charged higher prices than locals. Health care is another concern: while Americans abroad are eligible for Social Security benefits, Medicare won’t pay for services outside the US. As a result, retirees often hop on a plane to return to the US for medical care or receive care under a local system.

US insurers are beginning to catch on. Cigna has a plan that allows US companies to offer insurance to retirees who move abroad. Just 200 people are enrolled up but Cigna expects significant growth.

I expect we’ll see more seniors leave the US for retirement in lower cost countries with inexpensive labor. If the US continues to toughen restrictions on immigrants it won’t be long before shortages of home care workers and nurses begin to bite. If we won’t let caregivers come to the US, Americans will need to go where the caregivers are. Some Americans will leave the US once they begin to require nursing care or assisted living services. Other retirees living abroad will age into such situations.  Full article here and see also the WSJ article here:

An interesting article I was reading yesterday or the day before.  People often talk to me about running a business in the Philippines.  They also have a lot of questions about medical tourism …even simple things like having caps put on a few teeth will easily pay for a trip to the Philippines and leave money in your pocket besides.  And a third subject that (especially) US expats discuss is, what to do when you are perhaps 75 or 80 and too old to live independently.  Do you hire help and set up your own "assisted living" set up in the Philippines or do you "retreat" back to the US and enter some level of long term care facility there?

I’m not yet smart enough to know for sure if I could pull it off, but I believe more and more every day that there will be a big market for managed care and assisted liv9ng facilities in the Philippines.

Just as people (often pushed by their insurance companies) are going overseas for expensive operations more and more frequently, I predict the will come when a viable business will be setting up elder care facilities here in the Philippines for US clients.  There are already a few successful businesses set up to cater to japanese clients (elder care is a much more significant problem in Japan, so far).  But the US population is aging, and US immigration and labor laws are making it more difficult by the day to offer decent care in the US.

I know the distance, both physically and emotionally, is a big stumbling block ….but I really think there are ways to mitigate that problem.  What do you think?

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