Medical tourism draws growing numbers of Americans to seek health care abroad

Manoj Jain
April 4, 5:46 PM

When my father had a toothache, he saw a dentist in Boston who recommended a root canal and dental crown costing about $2,000. He decided to wait until he was in India, his native land, for holidays and had the procedure done there for $200. Extremely satisfied with the service and the price, my mother decided to have her two front teeth replaced, eliminating a wide gap that tarnished her smile, and estimated she had saved $3,000.

According to Deloitte consulting services, 875,000 Americans like my parents were medical tourists in 2010, traveling outside U.S. borders to receive health care: dental work, elective hip replacements, even bypass surgery.

I hadn’t given medical tourism or outsourcing much thought until a few months ago, when I was at the Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) Hospitals in Bangalore with Devi Shetty, the founder of the medical complex and a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.

Shetty told me bypass surgeries cost his patients $2,000 to $5,000, a tenth of what it would cost in the United States. As a U.S.-educated doctor, I wasn’t sure whether I should feel threatened by or marvel at Shetty’s setup. But I was curious, so I asked him how he was able to realize such savings.

His formula was simple: Focus on the process and on volume. “If you are investing heavily in the process, the product naturally will be good,â€