The National Center for Policy Analysis, in an article released today, concludes that “as more insured patients begin to travel abroad for low-cost medical procedures, medical tourism will result in sorely needed competition in the American health care industry.”

The NCPA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization with a goal of developing and promoting private alternatives to government regulation and control. The latest analysis was prepared by Devon Herrick, who also authored a lengthier study of medical tourism and travel in Nov. 2007 titled Medical Tourism: Global Competition in Health Care.

The latest analysis recommends direct public policy changes at the state and federal level:

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Most medical patients aren’t aware of their rights, other than generally. In the United States, particularly, they can be excused — patient rights vary depending on the state in which a person lives and what protections and recourse that may be offered by an insurer or HMO. Patient Bills of Rights passed both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in 2002, but they were different versions and, ultimately, no bill was able to pass both bodies.

The President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality adopted what amounted to a consumer bill of rights and responsibilities (note that with the rights come responsibilities) in 1998 which is, as the name of the commission suggests, only advisory in nature. Many, but not all, health plans and healthcare organizations formally subscribe to the principles in the commission’s final report. It is ten years old, and non-binding, but it is better than nothing.

Medical travel and tourism was barely heard of in the United States by 1998, and was not a consideration in the debate over a federal Patient Bill of Rights in 2001-2002. Medical tourism has only more recently come under scrutiny in Congress. Regarding their rights, medical tourists and travelers have mostly been told: “You’re on your own.”

So it’s good to see medical tourism companies grappling with the concept of patient rights and responsibilities, as BridgeHealth International has. The company today released “Clients’ and Traveling Patients’ Rights and Duties,” a statement that is meant to represent the company’s values as well as representing, broadly, the rights that a BridgeHealth client can expect when traveling overseas for medical care.

Reading through the document, it occurred to me that in it are embodied the rights that any patient should expect to have anywhere — not just when traveling abroad — but that several of the enumerated rights are not common in the United States. In particular, do patients have a timely, thorough and documented process for registering complaints? And do they always receive a detailed statement of account with an explanation of all expenses incurred during treatment? Perhaps both are routine in some facilities, but I think the perception is that neither is commonplace.

I’d love to hear what readers think. Is the BridgeHealth statement of rights and duties on the money? Does it go far enough? What, if anything, would you add to it?

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, Maine is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region. He has a terrific article in the Bangor Daily news, headlined, “Consider medical tourism a warning.” in which he discusses the recent news that Hannaford Bros., a supermarket chain with 27,000 employees, is offering a medical travel option as part of employee benefits. The story, initially reported out of Maine, was picked up by the Associated Press and made national news. (Link here.)

Says Dr. Steele:

“Rather than curse Hannaford for its self-interested decision, we would do well to see Hannaford as a corporate canary chirping frantically about the deteriorating conditions brought on by high health care costs in the coal mine of American business. Its action is a warning of things to come. If unheeded, it will not be Hannaford’s action that has brought about the ruin of some hospitals, but the failure of health care and other leaders in this country to listen to the canary.”

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The first BridgeHealth International web seminar on medical travel and tourism, held Friday, was a big success. More than 40 people stopped in, and I know Will Garin and Stephanie Sulger were working overtime to answer the follow-up questions. The company expects to make the so-called “webinars” a regular event.

If you weren’t there (or even if you were) the webinar was an online slide presentation with an hour of commentary by Garin, BridgeHealth’s vice president of marketing, and Sulger, vice president of the consumer division. You can hear the whole show below, though the slides are too large to fit properly in the blog format. If you want to download the whole presentation with the slides, here’s the link to a windows media file:

BridgeHealth Webinar May 30: 73MB, wmv format

Here’s a link to a file that users should be able to download and play on a Mac or IPod:

BridgeHealth Webinar May 30: 26MB, IPod (m4b) format

Here’s an mp4 file that should play nicely in Quicktime, and includes small versions of the slides:

BridgeHealth Webinar May 30: 34MB, QuickTime (mp4) format

And here’s the inline, on-blog audio (MP3 format.) I’m told it may be unlistenable for Mac users, who are best off with the file downloads above.