Companies have discovered in recent years that they can save significant healthcare dollars by putting workers on planes and sending them off to have surgical procedures far from home.
Many businesses going this route have looked overseas to get good care for employees at much lower costs. Last year, for example, Hannaford Bros. announced it would begin sending employees to Singapore to get knee and hip replacements. Interestingly, according to a report by Business Insurance, the grocery chain then received bids from hospitals in Boston offering to match Singapore's price.
Medical tourism, as the practice of sending workers long distances for healthcare is known, continues to grow as companies seek ways to try and get hold of the rampant increases that seem endemic to the American healthcare system.
Employers usually offer workers incentives to help them get over the normal anxiety of going far away from home to deal with a medical issue. Berner Food & Beverage Co. in Illinois has waived individual deductibles and offered up to $1,000 in wellness credits to those who that take part in the company's program with Healthplace America, a company that specializes in medical tourism.
"Surgery is our greatest expense," Anita Boska, human resources manager at Berner, told Business Insurance. To date, three of Berner's workers have used the program saving it an estimated $1,000 per month per employee.
Discussion Questions: Is the growth of medical tourism indicative of a failure of the current employer-sponsored healthcare system in the U.S.? Will an aging workforce requiring more surgeries put employers in the position of having to insist employees go the medical tourism route to keep healthcare costs down? As an employee, how would you react to such a directive?