Tourism for health

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Tourism for health
MAY 24, 2005
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
International Herald Tribune
BUDAPEST When Loman O'Dowd of County Donegal, Ireland, retired last year after decades of hard work, he felt the urge to travel, to see the world.
He also needed extensive and expensive dental work. His asthma was acting up as well. So this month, O'Dowd, a retired horticulturist, took care of both his wanderlust and his medical needs during a 10-day trip to Hungary.
He toured the ancient castle in Buda. He had dental bridges and fillings put in. He stayed in a luxury apartment overlooking the Danube. He had daily inhalation treatments at an asthma cave. He played golf and ate goulash.
"I've been all over and the total cost - including the airfare- will be far less than what dental would cost me at home," he said, in a tidy waiting room, just after his final dental appointment in downtown Budapest. "I would recommend this in a second."
A growing number of people from Western Europe and even the United States are becoming medical tourists, traveling by plane to faraway countries to get cheap medical care that would be prohibitively expensive and sometimes involve long waits at home.
There are no exact numbers, but it is a booming business in places like the former Eastern bloc countries - both for doctors and dentists, as well as for the tour operators in countries like Ireland, Britain and Denmark who help organize the trips.
Dr. Attila Kuncsik, O'Dowd's dentist here, now sees half a dozen foreign patients a week, some of whom have found him through an Internet site, dentaltravel.co.uk, and others through an add he placed himself on google.com.
"This part of my practice has grown very rapidly, especially in the past year," he said, noting that, while most of his patients were from Britain and Ireland, there are some from Israel and the United States as well. William O'Brien, a businessman who flew from Dublin to Budapest last week for some dental crowns, said he counted 18 people on his flight who had come to see the dentist.
Traditionally, only the very wealthy traveled for medical care. They flew to the United States and Western Europe when they developed a serious illness like cancer or needed heart bypass surgery, for example.
But these days, the far larger medical migration is in the opposite direction, as medical costs have skyrocketed and insurance coverage has diminished in many developed nations. Patients come here for elective or semi-elective procedures that are covered poorly or not at all by insurance and national health plans: things like major dental work, corrective vision surgery or routine heart evaluations.
Low-cost airlines and Internet advertising, which connects patients and doctors around the world, have also encouraged this sort of travel, bringing patients not only to Hungary but to the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania.
For patients, the prospect of getting substandard care abroad has become less of an issue, as medicine has become both more globalized and mechanized in the last decade: An increasing number of doctors practicing in the former Eastern bloc have some training in the West, and their offices use the same equipment as in London, Frankfurt or New York.
The Lexum Eye Clinic in Prague, which treats many foreigners, uses only equipment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and about half of its eye surgeons did advanced training in the United States at some of the country's premier eye hospitals.
The price difference for most procedures is enormous. Laser eye correction surgery, which rarely costs under Ç«®4,000, or about $5,020, in Western Europe, costs about Ç«®1,000 for the travelers. "My total cost was Ç«®1,000 for both eyes, and with regard to the quality and service it was great - I have no concerns," said Don Ellis, a retired U.S. defense contractor, after a post-op checkup at the Optik-Med Clinic in Budapest last week.
Ellis spends time in Hungary for business and decided to have his eyes done at the Optik-Med Clinic after another American patient he knew recommended it.
The evolution of the medical tourism market in Hungary was perhaps predictable, since Austrian, Swiss and German patients have been driving over the Hungarian border for cheaper dental care for 10 to 15 years. Labor, equipment and real estate costs are far lower than in Western Europe, allowing doctors and dentists to off allowing doctors and dentists to offer their services at a fraction of West European prices.
A crown, which would cost between Ç«®800 and Ç«®1,000 in Western Europe, runs only about Ç«®250 here, at an up-market dental office, fashioned by a master ceramicist. Most work is guaranteed for 3 to 5 years.
Stanley Volk, a sign painter from London, was told that he would have to pay ¨£25,000, or $45,600, for dental implants in Britain. So, after doing an Internet search on implants and Hungary, he ended up taking a plane for a one-day consultation at Kreativ, a dental clinic on the outskirts of Budapest that caters almost exclusively to English-speaking foreigners.
Recently, he was back for his first surgery at the Kreativ clinic in an elegant if somewhat oddly placed waiting room (over a car repair shop) filled with fish tanks, flags, and that universal dentist office aroma. In all, he will travel to Budapest three times to complete the procedure, staying in nearby hotels. With air tickets costing only Ç«®60, it will be well worth it, he said.
For others, avoiding the long waits that are common under national health plans are also a big incentive. Jamie Mulligan, 29, an Irish rock musician, flew to Budapest for just two days to get a tooth replaced that had been knocked out in a fight. He traveled with a friend, who came to have four root canals, a procedure that now requires a three-month wait in Ireland, he said.
"Four years ago, the foreigners just started coming and now we will have to move our office to keep up with the demand," said Attila Knott, the clinic's manager. "For a while I was thinking of marketing to the French, but the English market is already keeping us so busy."
With the potential for a large new industry, entrepreneurs and even hotel chains are getting into the act. The Danubius Thermal Hotel on Budapest's Margaret Island recently started offering eye surgery, dental started offering eye surgery, dental work and heart evaluations, all at an on-site medical clinic.
Balazs Stumpf-Biro, 28, the owner of dentaltravel.uk.com, picks patients up at the airport, arranges housing, drives them to appointments at private offices and takes them on tours of the city. "They may come for medical care, but by the time they leave my goal is to have them fall in love with Budapest," he said.