Business
WellPoint enters medical tourism
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 1, 2008
WellPoint is the latest health plan to join in the growing trend of medical tourism with a pilot program it is starting next year.
The Indianapolis-based insurer said that employees of Wisconsin-based Serigraph Inc., a self-insured printing company that employs about 700 people in the U.S., will have the option of traveling to India for nonemergency procedures such as knee and hip replacements.
In exchange, patients would not pay any out-of-pocket expenses, not even travel costs. WellPoint subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin will be the administrator for the program by setting up medical care and making travel arrangements.
The insurer said it hopes the plan will save it money and also give it more bargaining power with U.S-based health care networks.
WellPoint joins Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, which both launched medical tourism programs last year.
About 750,000 Americans traveled abroad for medical care last year, with 1.5 million expected to do so this year, according to a study by Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/12/01/bibf1201.htm.
