“With President Obama’s crusade for lower health costs in full swing, many Americans are left wondering where they’ll find quality treatment.

The answer is likely south – as in, yes, Mexico – but trends indicate the border-crossing phenomenon may also be growing at home.

There was a time when traveling across the border for prescription drugs or dental treatment –  much less a surgical procedure – meant returning with a botched boob job or worse, but many U.S. tourism companies are taking the plunge, sending their clients to Mexico, Costa Rica and beyond for medical treatments that rival those at American hospitals at half or even one-third of the cost.

A San Diego-based medical tourism company, Satori World Medical, offers a procedure list that includes everything from plastic surgery to spinal fusion at 40 to 80 percent of the cost of the same procedure done in the U.S…”

Click to read the full article on San Diego News Network

By Kevin Poling, Director of Travel of Satori World Medical

Satori World Medical offers many choices in destinations to receive medical care. Whether you are traveling internationally for a shoulder or knee replacement or even a cosmetic procedure, such as a facelift, you and your companion can take some extra time on your trip to enjoy the amenities of your hotel and experience the rich cultural areas in which our International Centers of Excellence are located.

The first of the destination cities of the Satori Global Network™ I am highlighting is Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, and fifth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.6 million. Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural and financial centre of Turkey [1].

Your ‘to do list’ while in Istanbul:

• Take a tour of the Bosphorus
• Take a quick city bus tour of Istanbul
• Experience shopping like you never have before
• Try some fresh seafood on the Bosphorus
• Listen to live music at one of many venues throughout the city
• Explore the cultural richness and history at one of Istanbul’s renowned museum
• Create your own adventure! Istanbul is home to many avenues and cosmopolitan districts which are just waiting to be explored… You won’t have to go far to find a new and exciting experience!

Transportation

Istanbul is connected via a series of railways, trams, funiculars, a light rail transit system, as well as busses, various motorways and plenty of sea transportation. The city is mostly surrounded by sea, so there are many ferry and sea bus systems available to explore surrounding areas, such as the Princes’ Islands.

Tours

Many tour programs are available, especially throughout the summer months, when tour boats take many tourists up the Bosphorus, while making stops on the Asian side and in Anadolu Kavagi. There, tourists can enjoy live music and dine on fresh fish. City bus tours are also available throughout Istanbul, and often cover most popular areas of the city within a couple hours. This gives tourists an opportunity to seek out areas of interest, and easily return to explore them more thoroughly.

Shopping

Istanbul is a shopping Mecca, and tourists can find anything from modern world class brands, to spices, jewelry, and more in any of the cities shopping districts. Many places such as the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Bazaar are known for finding one of a kind items, as well as a vast selection of crafts and pottery from the thousands of shops and vendors located within. Modern shopping malls are also found throughout the city, and shoppers can treat themselves to luxury items from around Asia, Europe and also a large collection of world-famous fashion brands.

Culture

There are many entertainment options throughout Istanbul, as the city is becoming increasingly rich in cultural, social, and tourist-friendly activities. Year round, one can catch an opera, ballet, or enjoy Turkish theater, while seasonal festivals offer world class orchestras and concerts featuring many world famous musicians.

There are many renowned museums throughout the city, including the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, which is one of the largest archaeological museums in the world. Istanbul Modern is an art museum which frequently hosts exhibitions from famous artists worldwide (not to mention a great website!). There are also other historical museums which feature vintage machines and transportation vessels from the past including trains, submarines, aircraft, and other items. Truly a great collection of both modern and past perspectives! [2]

Dining

Istanbul is known for its seafood and wine houses, which can be found lining the Bosphorus and Marmara Sea on the southern end of the city. There are also numerous cafes, pubs, taverns, and open air spaces, in which tourists can experience live music and local talent first hand. Contact us today to speak to a Travel Care Coordinator and get started on your medical travel experience.

View more of Satori World Medical’s popular destinations

References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul
[2] http://english.istanbul.com/

In February 2009, Jessica, a 26-year-old woman from San Diego (who only uses her first name for confidentiality reasons), traveled with her mother to San José, Costa Rica to undergo a weight loss procedure through the Satori World Medical program. Below is Jessica’s personal account of her medical travel experience. Jessica says:

I first learned about medical tourism and the Satori World Medical program from my employer. When I discovered how much money could be saved by traveling outside the U.S. to receive medical care, I was immediately intrigued by the option.

After a brief introduction, I enrolled in the Satori World Medical program and within just a matter of time made arrangements to have surgery at one of the top-rate hospitals within the Satori Global Network. With the counsel of one of Satori World Medical’s Nurse Patient Advocates, I chose Clinica Biblica in Costa Rica.

At first, I had a lot of questions but immediately felt at ease upon speaking with my Nurse Patient Advocate. She was extremely knowledgeable and took care of absolutely every detail for me, from helping me select my hospital and transferring my medical records, to scheduling my follow-up care in the U.S. before even leaving the country.

Meanwhile, Satori World Medical’s Travel Care Coordinators handled all travel details for me and my companion, including making all flight and hotel reservations, arranging all of our ground transportation and ensuring the best possible experience from beginning to end. It was wonderful to know that I could have a companion accompany me. It made all the difference. My Travel Care Coordinator also provided us with a detailed travel itinerary so that we knew exactly where to be and when, and exactly what to expect along the way.

Then when I finally arrived on the day of my scheduled surgery at Clinica Biblica, I couldn’t believe how beautiful the hospital was, from the registration area to the patient rooms. Everything was absolutely state-of-the-art and the care I received from their doctors and nurses was more compassionate and personalized than I had ever experienced anywhere.

My hospital room was great – private, spacious and equipped with every amenity, even a flat-screen TV and sofa! But still what stands out in my mind the most was Clinica Biblica’s caring medical staff. They were extremely helpful. In fact my doctor still calls me to see how I am doing.

Looking back, I would not hesitate again to receive surgery through any of the international hospitals in the Satori World Medical program and would certainly recommend it to anybody else who is considering medical travel.

By Steven Lash, President & CEO of Satori World Medical

At next week’s American Health Insurance Plans Institute Conference (AHIP Institute 2009, June 3-5, 2009) in San Diego, thousands of health care executives and companies from around the nation, including Satori World Medical, will convene to discuss U.S. Health Care Reform, among other pressing global issues surrounding health care.

I am particularly excited to see that the globalization of health care will be among the topics at the forefront of this year’s conference agenda. As governments, employers and individuals around the world continue to face skyrocketing health care costs, rapidly aging populations and increasing consumer demands, more nations such as the U.S., are turning to the private sector for new ways to provide access to high quality health care procedures.

During AHIP, Satori World Medical’s Strategic Advisory Board Member, Stuart Altman, Ph. D., will lead a panel discussion on issues surrounding the globalization of health care. Specific topics that will be discussed include:

• Growing choice among U.S. consumers to travel internationally in order to obtain high quality, accessible and affordable health care.
• Emergence of leading-edge technology combined with performance-based initiatives critical to improving the delivery of health care around the world.
• Global expansion of health care and things that need to be considered in order to make global health care a real and viable choice for all Americans.
• Challenges and opportunities for reducing health care costs while simultaneously increasing the quality of health care delivery.

Due to the conference’s important focus on global health care this year, Satori World Medical is also thrilled to be the only global health care network/medical travel company exhibiting at AHIP 2009.

Specific topics related directly to global health care, which I hope will engender further discussion include:

• How and why more U.S. payors and employers are adopting medical tourism and integrating global health care programs into their overall employee benefit plan design;
• International health care quality and how hospitals outside the U.S. are able to deliver equivalent, or superior, quality health care services at a fraction of the cost domestically; and
• Where medical tourism specifically fits into the future of U.S. Healthcare Reform.

While medical travel is still in its early stages, the increased focus on global health care among top leaders in the industry, is a testament to the growing and significant role that global health care is continuing to play in U.S. Health Care Reform. The fact that Satori World Medical is leading this important industry transformation is very exciting for us.

Satori World Medical will be exhibiting at Booth #921. Join our executives for an insightful conversation about medical tourism and how global health care programs are helping to bring high quality, cost effective health care solutions to U.S. plan sponsors/employers and their employees.

We’ll see you next week in San Diego!

By Jessica Yarbrough,

Marketing & Communications Manager, Satori World Medical

Satori World Medical’s innovative global health care program continues to gain widespread interest among U.S. employers seeking innovative ways to reduce their employees’ medical expenses.

The company is also getting the attention of the news media. Satori World Medical was recently featured in several articles about medical tourism, including two well-known trade publications for U.S. health plan and employee benefit decision-makers called Inside Consumer-Directed Care (ICDC) and Best Practices in Compensation & Benefits.

While each of these articles provides a different perspective on medical tourism, the message in both is consistently clear – when it comes to employer-funded health care, reducing health care costs is the first and foremost priority for today’s U.S. companies, and global health care offers a very promising solution.

In the recent May 2009 Best Practices in Compensation & Benefits article featuring Satori World Medical, titled “Medical Tourism: Lower Costs, Higher Quality,” George McGregor, President of McGregor & Associates, an employee benefits consulting firm, explains why he chose to add Satori World Medical’s global health care network for their contracted employers and their employees.

McGregor says, “Southern California, where we do business, has basically become a cartel medical market. There has been so much consolidation, both at a physician level and at a hospital level that it has reached a point where individual employers no longer matter. Hospitals are able to dictate 30 percent year-over-year cost increases, all while the quality of health care is declining. There is a lack of quality in the existing system as medicine has become a commodity.”

 He continues, “Meanwhile, the rest of the world has openly embraced that need for care. There are hospitals internationally that have equal to or better results than their U.S. counterparts do, and they do it at 25 cents on the dollar. So for us, medical tourism is providing immediate access to high quality care at a much lower price.”

In fact, McGregor states that as a result of having just one participating employee undergo a surgical procedure through the Satori Global Network™, McGregor & Associates saved $38,000 in the very first month.

The ICDC article, ”Start-up Company Leverages HRAs to Help Employers and Their Workers Split the Savings From Medical Tourism”, offers a detailed explanation of how Satori World Medical’s program works and why it is different than anything else offered on the market.

While other medical tourism companies also promote their services as a benefit for employees enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), Satori’s approach is unique in its shared-savings focus.

Employers can offer the Satori benefit to their employees without a deductible or copayment. When an employee chooses to use the benefit, Satori operates much as other medical tourism companies do by arranging for the procedure, travel and follow-up care. Satori also handles the entire billing process for the employer.

But the similarities end there. Using hip replacement surgery as an example, Lash says that while the procedure typically costs $60,000 in the U.S., with the patient paying $2,500 out of pocket, that same procedure, including travel and other related expenses, costs $20,000 at a Satori network hospital. The patient pays nothing for the procedure. And the employer and employee both share in the resulting $40,000 savings at a predetermined rate. Lash says that if the company returns a percentage of the savings to the employee, say 20%, the employer then deposits $8,000 into the employee’s HRA for future use. Or the employer could select a predetermined amount to be deposited in the employee’s account.

Lash says the advantages of this approach for the employer include being able to offer a 100% benefit to employees without a deductible or copay, and the ability to share in the savings. The HRA funds also are tax-deductible for the employer. And because HRAs are not portable, they can be used as an employee retention tool. Employees, meanwhile, can use the money deposited in their HRAs to offset future premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.

With the ability to reduce an employee’s health care costs by an average 44-84 percent per procedure, including the costs of travel and accommodations for the patient and a companion, clearly this model makes sense. If you would like to learn more about Satori World Medical, please visit www.satoriworldmedical.com.

Also feel free to check out Satori World Medical’s recent media coverage by visiting Satori World Medical’s online media room.

By Steven Lash, President & Chief Executive Officer of Satori World Medical

Satori World Medical has been quite busy over the past several months in our mission and vision to provide individuals, employers, financial sponsors and insurers with world-class healthcare, excellent client services and significant financial benefit.  We are very pleased to announce that we have executed an agreement with McGregor & Associates, an employee benefits consulting firm specializing in servicing public sector employers, to offer Satori World Medical’s innovative global healthcare network to thousands of McGregor & Associates’ contracted employers and their employees, as well as its own staff.

The costs of healthcare in the U.S. are higher than in any other country in the world, placing an enormous burden on today’s U.S. companies that fund their employees’ healthcare, in addition to the employees themselves who have become responsible for more and more of their own medical expenses.

McGregor & Associates is an organization committed to its customers and their employees.  Ensuring that the quality of care their constituents receive at our international hospitals is equal to or better than the care they would receive in the U.S. was the number one decision criteria for selecting Satori World Medical.  According to George McGregor, President of McGregor & Associates, our company has the most sophisticated quality assurance programs and processes compared to all the competitors that operate in medical travel space. George holds numerous other positions including General Manager of the Southern California Schools Voluntary Employees’ Benefits Association (VEBA), administrator of the California Public Employers Employees Health Care Coalition, and administrator of the SDCS-SDEA, a Joint Retiree Medical Benefits Trust.

Through our global network of Board Certified doctors and Joint Commission International (JCI)-accredited, state-of-the-art hospitals, Satori World Medical provides a comprehensive, high quality integrated medical benefit program that reduces the costs of selected surgical procedures by 44-84 percent.  The savings generated are shared with all stakeholders, while a portion of the savings, is funded in the employees tax-advantaged Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) when they select a Satori Global Network™ provider for their medical procedure. With Satori World Medical’s innovative Health & Shared Wealth Program™, everyone wins.

Other key benefits to U.S. employers are as follows:

·       Ability to compete better globally: Global healthcare models result in major economic benefits for U.S. companies because the costs of their employees’ healthcare are greatly reduced.  U.S. companies have access to same quality healthcare at much lower expense and as a result, companies can be more profitable and competitive globally.

·       Improved employee retention and satisfaction: An organization’s financial strength is built and reinforced by reducing costs and investing in the financial security and well-being of its workforce.  Therefore, companies that offer a global healthcare benefit option to their employees can greatly strengthen the overall morale and productivity of their workforce.  This is a new medical benefit at no cost to the employer or employee.

·       Seamless integration with any existing medical plan: A global healthcare benefit program can be seamlessly added to an employer’s existing employee benefit program and without any startup or ongoing expenses for the employer.  This medical benefit is in addition to the medical plan that is currently in place.

·       Single bill for employee claims: When considering the implementation of a global healthcare benefit program, one common concern among employers is whether or not significant internal resources and staff to administer patient claims and billing are involved.  Satori World Medical meets this challenge by handling the entire billing process for the employer, in which a single bill in U.S. dollars is provided for all services rendered, thus reducing company claims processing costs and with no foreign currency exchange fluctuations.

We are extremely excited about our partnership with McGregor & Associates because we believe our program will allow them to significantly improve the quality of their participating employers’ benefit administration processes, as well as their own, resulting in improved value and reduced costs across the board.  McGregor & Associates understands the importance of providing quality improvement solutions that increase employee and customer satisfaction, competitiveness, and financial performance.

Steven Lash, president and CEO of Satori World Medical, outlines the burgeoning industry of Medical Tourism, and shares information about Satori World Medical’s patented Business & Care Model.

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