Four Trends Driving Americans to Outsource Their Health Care
February 7, 2012 Leave a comment
Last week I spoke with Jesus, and he couldn’t believe the state of the American health care system. And boy did he have command of his facts.
Jesus, of course, is Dr. Jesus Ortiz, founder of Orbicare, a regional health care network of providers located across Europe and Latin America.
Dr. Ortiz put together some interesting statistics about the state of the American health care system – stats that told him that Americans were ready for a disruptive health care model – especially when that model includes providers providing leading edge treatments in the areas of addiction, IVF, metabolic disease and adult stem cell therapy for COPD and heart congestive heart failure.
US Health Care by the Numbers
1 world ranking of US in health care spending
49 ranking of US on life expectancy
15 percentage of the US population without health insurance
35 percent of Americans reporting an unmet need for health care in the past year
47 percent postponing seeking care because of cost in the past year
23 percent of families without insurance spending less on other basic needs in order to pay medical bills
$922 additional amount families had to pay on their health insurance premiums due to the uninsured burden on the system
$768 amount by which the average annual health premium exceeds minimum wage worker’s annual earnings
$1,525 amount General Motors estimates that health care costs add to the selling price of each new car
6 Factor by which administrative costs of the US health care system are higher on a per person basis vs. other nations
In his report, he identifies the four trends that led him, along with a group of physicians and hospital administrators and employer benefits specialists to form Orbicare, a regional health care network that enable Americans to expand their medical care options to include fully accredited international hospitals with cost models less than 70% the rate of the US system.
Summary of Trends Driving the Globalization of Health Care:
Trend 1 – Access to quality: Medical excellence abroad is widely available
Trend 2 – Access to savings: US employers are seeking the savings of medical travel
Trend 3 – Access to technology: US medical device companies are moving operations abroad
Trend 4 – Access to innovation: new discoveries in chronic disease treatment
Related articles
- Health Travel Technologies Signs Patient Referral and Management Licensing Partnership with Orbicare Latin American Health Care Network (prweb.com)
- Steve Jacob: Health-Care Reform’s Fate Won’t Alter Health Care’s Larger Problems (huffingtonpost.com)
- Health care systems around the world; what people in other countries think of their health care systems … you may be surprised. (quinnscommentary.com)
Sign up for the Travel for Health Newsletter!
