How much can you say about medical tourism in less than three minutes? I found out Thursday that the answer is “more than I thought,” when the PBS Nightly Business Report managed to summarize recent events in the industry in … uh … two minutes and 48 seconds, by my clock.

An edited transcript of the segment is here:

“Bill of Health”-Medical Tourism

What did PBS think was important? Aetna’s deal with Hannaford Brothers to offer surgery in Singapore; Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina setting up a subsidiary for medical travel; the American Medical Association announcing medical tourism guidelines; Intercontinental Hotel Group embracing medical travel in Latin America; etc.

Vic Lazzaro, CEO of BridgeHealth International, was among those PBS turned to for comment. The report didn’t break new ground, but it’s interesting that medical tourism has turned into the kind of story that large business news outlets — PBS, the cable news networks, major business magazines — feel they have to keep up with.

The story of modern medical tourism in the United States, as told by the media, has changed over time and now comes in a package of inevitability. It hit home for me last week, when the American Medical Association acknowledged medical travel and tourism and set some broad guidelines (reported here) and, again today, with a significant story by MSNBC Health Writer JoNel Aleccia that advances the storyline for consumers very nearly to a frontier that, until recently, was the province of industry insiders.

Hip surgery in India? Insurance may pay:
Burgeoning benefits could send hordes of U.S. patients abroad for care

The paragraph that jumped off the screen at me was this:

Once the province of the poor and uninsured, medical tourism is gaining attention of industry giants such as CIGNA, Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who say they either have begun or are considering pilot programs that provide limited coverage for foreign care. One Montana firm, Employee Benefit Management Services Inc., recently began offering medial tourism plans to its 120 self-insured clients in the Northwest.

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