Readers of this blog get first crack at the best seats for BridgeHealth International Inc.’s first-ever medical tourism “Webinar” on Friday, May 30 at 11 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time.

The free online event will feature Stephanie Sulger, RN. MS, VP of BridgeHealth’s Consumer Division; and Will Garin, VP of marketing for the Denver-based company. The one-hour presentation is open to the first 125 people to register online:

Webinar Online Registration Link

No special software or hardware is required to view and participate in the Webinar. The presentation is recommended for “anyone who has ever wondered what medical tourism is really like,” Garin said. “It gives people a place to start and a place to get their questions answered.”

Sulger, a pioneer in the medical travel and tourism industry, is frequently called upon to assess health and safety factors at medical destinations and is often quoted in media such as The New York Times and Good Housekeeping magazine, as well as appearing on ABC television speaking about issues facing the medical travel industry. In her career, she has assisted more than 3,000 clients in obtaining care in overseas facilities, including for orthopedics, neurosurgery, general surgery, cosmetic surgery, GYN, urology and stem cell therapy.

BridgeHealth is the sponsor of this blog. You can expect to see the moderator at the webinar, providing there’s an extra seat …

I woke up today and imagined the following news story …

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 15, 2008) — The World Medical Tourism Council today announced the release of the first International Patient Handbook, a comprehensive guide to international healthcare that rates every doctor, surgeon, dentist and medical facility in the world. The handbook lists prices for procedures and surgery that are all-inclusive and guaranteed for a year.

Simultaneously, the council launched a website that scientifically matches patients with the best medical professional for them, based on a consumer profile that takes just 10 minutes to fill out. Consumers can browse the experiences and case histories of every patient their surgeon ever operated on.After being matched with a doctor on the site, a patient can schedule a video interview, book appointments and surgical dates and find appropriate and discounted accommodations and flights. Consumers can also make arrangements for passports and visa, get advice on what to pack, hire babysitters if they need childcare and book dinner reservations for their stay abroad.

Patients with health insurance are eligible for cash bonuses ranging from $500 up to $10,000 just for using the site, depending on what care is required, if their insurer or HMO is an affiliate member of the council. Patients without insurance may be eligible for sliding-scale discounts on the already low fees, paid for by a U.S. insurer’s fund earmarked for reducing expensive emergency room care costs and promoting wellness and preventative care …

Perhaps it was a waking dream and I shouldn’t confess to having those while driving. There is no such thing as the World Medical Tourism Council, of course; and a worldwide database that ranks medical professionals and matches them to patients is purely the stuff of science fiction. There is no such thing for even a single hospital, let alone for the planet. No cash bonuses for insured patients who choose medical travel are available, though the idea is not entirely a fantasy. Various theorists and economists have speculated that U.S. insurers may eventually offer incentives to patients to choose medical tourism, both to compensate the patient for inconvenience and accepting a perceived risk and because the savings to the insurer when a patient chooses care abroad are so large that it is worth offering financial encouragement.

But if you look around the Internet — there is nothing in my fictitious news story, my waking dream, to which the medical travel industry does not aspire.

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Vic Lazzaro, BridgeHealth International Inc.’s CEO, was featured recently on the EBA Raw Bar, which is the regular podcast of Employee Benefit Adviser. The Raw Bar features “daily in-depth interviews and discussions with the leading employee benefits minds of our time,” and I’ve no doubt Vic is a little amused to be described as among such company. But that’s what happens when you’re ahead of the curve.

In the interview, he describes the role a strong network plays in creating confidence in care abroad and sheds light on the provider selection process. You can listen below — just click the arrow to play the sound file.

Medical travel and tourism continues to be poked and prodded in the U.S. media and, increasingly, the news is catching up with the most significant trend in the nascent industy.

And that is, that patients can go outside of the United States for high quality medical care at far lower costs than at home is becoming part of how businesses, insurers and consumers — together — are fighting to contain costs for needed healthcare. The May issue of Fast Company covers the topic and the issues it raises, in considerable depth, in an article headlined, simply, Medical Leave. The article is a snapshot of U.S. healthcare at a crossroads:

“The phrase “medical tourism” was once used to describe early retirees jetting in to Bangkok or Bangalore to have a little work done before recuperating on the beach. That image doesn’t jibe with the numbers today. As many as half a million Americans streamed abroad last year in search of affordable alternatives for hip replacements or prostate surgery. And they went not for the postsurgical tanning but for the savings: up to 90% off the going rates in the United States. They went because 47 million Americans lack insurance and can’t pay for surgery to fix a bad back or clogged arteries. Or because they have insurance but can’t begin to pay the soaring deductibles a major surgery entails. They’re fleeing a system that is by far the most expensive in the world and growing more so by the hour, with diminishing returns in quality of care.”

The FastCompany.com article makes it clear — U.S. businesses and insurers are integrating medical travel into healthcare offerings at whatever pace that consumers will accept — and as consumers learn more about healthcare outside the U.S., they accept or even embrace it.

That has also been the experience of Stephanie Sulger, BridgeHealth International vice president, who has been helping patients get the care they need at a cost they can afford for the past six years.

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