Medical travel offers savings but not enough to aid reform

Medical tourism trips offer steep savings, but they don't pack enough financial might to play a key role in President Obama's push to lower U.S. health care costs.

Medical travel cost U.S. health care providers about $5.1 billion in business in 2007, according to estimates by Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. While significant, that amounts to less than 1 percent of the $2.36 trillion spent on health care in the United States that year.

Medical tourism can yield savings of as much as 80 percent on some procedures compared to care in the United States. But traveling isn't for everyone, and the trips are generally not an option for emergencies.

A patient's willingness to travel for non-emergency care often depends on the savings at stake. With a low deductible and no incentives from an insurer or employer to travel, a patient may have little motivation to make a trip.

Any result from the Washington reform push is unlikely to affect medical tourism, Keckley said, because it won't lower costs enough to erase price gaps with foreign care providers.