"Sue goes to Belgium"
Sue Sorey, a Baton Rogue resident, was a typical patient who needed a total hip in 2009. She had advanced OA in her right hip that had robbed her quality of life. Unfortunately, Sue did not have health insurance. Sue and her husband researched the cost of the operations from all of the local hospitals and received estimates from $60,000 to $100,000 out-of-pocket. They were devastated.
Then they heard about Medical Tourism from a friend. A few weeks later, Sue Sorey's hip resurfacing surgery took place in Ghent Belgium. The couple spent $25,000 total total... including the surgical procedure, and 13 days of lodging and meals in Belgium. Sue said that the pain relief was immediate. Mission accomplished.
Sue Sorey is a typical of today's Medical Tourism patient. The rising costs of medical treatment in the U.S. is sending Americans abroad in record numbers. Around 500,000 Americans leave the country each year for some sort of medical procedure. Medical tourism has its origins in the 1990’s with cosmetic procedures, but today a large percentage of patients travel for common Orthopedic procedures - total hips, total knees, spine fusions, etc. An “outsourced” ...
