audio by year 2007

I spoke recently with Rudy Rupak, Founder and President of Planet Hospital, a company that arranges medical travel (aka medical tourism) to 14 international destinations. Listen in to hear Rudy and me talk about the ins and outs of medical travel: what patients can expect when they leave the country for care, how insurance carriers are thinking about coverage, and what happens to patients when thy return to the US.

22:15 minutes (10.18 MB)

I spoke earlier today with Jeff Schult, author of Beauty from Afar: A Medical Tourist's Guide to Affordable and Quality Cosmetic Care Outside the U.S.. Jeff began writing the book when he journeyed to Costa Rica for major dental work. What started out as a magazine article turned into a full length book once he got to Costa Rica and learned the extent of the medical travel phenomenon.

19:37 minutes (8.98 MB)

Medical care in the US costs a fortune. In the past few years uninsured and under-insured Americans have been venturing to places as far away as India and Singapore for surgery and other treatments. The care is often excellent, prices are low, and even surgeons are customer-service oriented.

I spoke recently with Josef Woodman, author of Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Tourism. Listen in and hear what he has to say.

19:31 minutes (8.92 MB)

Patrick Marsek is Managing Director of medical tourism operator MedRetreat, which has helped almost 1000 Americans go overseas for medical care. I spoke with Patrick earlier today and asked him about what kinds of patients are good candidates for medical travel, who should use a medical travel agency instead of planning a trip themselves, and what some of the differences are between medical travel to Central/South America and travel to Southeast Asia.

Listen in and hear what he has to say.

22:40 minutes (10.36 MB)

I spoke recently with Stephanie Sulger, who founded Medical Tours International back in 2002. Stephanie and many of her colleagues at MTI are nurses, and she described to me how she's translated her nursing perspective into how MTI cares for its customers. I also spoke to her about quality control, SiCKO, travel friendly doctors in the US, and several other topics.

Listen in and hear what she has to say.

23:46 minutes (10.87 MB)

I spoke recently with Dr. Steven Tucker, an oncologist who is Medical Director of the West Clinic Singapore and President of the International Medical Travel Association.

Dr. Tucker spoke with me about what it’s like to practice medicine in Singapore, how medical tourism and medical travel are evolving, and the role he hopes the International Medical Travel Association will play.

Listen in and hear what he has to say.

23:20 minutes (10.68 MB)

Karen Timmons is President and CEO of the Joint Commission International. JCI is part of JCAHO, the leading accreditation arm for US hospitals.
International hospitals seek accreditation to demonstrate quality and JCI accreditation is considered a seal of approval by medical travelers from the US.
In our discussion, Karen shared her thoughts on medical tourism and the quality of overseas hospitals. She also provided tips for would be medical travelers.

17:22 minutes (7.97 MB)

Jim Plouffe, Editor in Chief for Reader's Digest, Asia, addressed foreign media in Singapore this morning. He shared the results of a pan-Asian survey of health care consumers and its implications for Singapore. He was introduced by Felicia Tan of SingaporeMedicine.

9:22 minutes (4.28 MB)

Kevin Tan, Assistant Head of the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology Sciences group with Singapore's Economic Development Board spoke Monday about Singapore's biomedical strategy and the interrelationship between health care delivery and research. The country's overall strategy to be a biomedical hub strengthens its position as a medical travel destination, especially for complex procedures and treatments.

22:56 minutes (10.51 MB)

Dan Snyder is Group Executive Vice President and Group Chief Operating Officer of Parkway Health, the leading hospital group in Asia. I met Dan yesterday at his office in Mt. Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. We spoke about Parkway's performance on quality, outcomes, and economics. Dan also shared his views on accreditation, insurance coverage for US patients, and approaches to managing concerns about malpractice and complications.

22:22 minutes (10.21 MB)

Today I toured KK Women's and Children's Hospital, a 900-bed tertiary care facility in Singapore. After a tour of the facility, which matches anything I've seen in the US in terms of physical plant and creature comforts, I sat down to speak with Chong Pik Wan, the hospital's Director of International Medical Services, to learn more about KK's OB and fertility services, and their relevance for medical travelers.

17:10 minutes (7.91 MB)

I visited the Thomson Medical Centre in Singapore recently and had the pleasure of meeting Dr. W C Cheng, who founded Thomson in 1979 and has seen it become Singapore's leading private health care provider for women and children. At 76 years of age, Dr. Cheng is still physically and mentally fit and continues to practice. In this interview he shares his views on health care delivery and healthy aging. He is an advocate for Hormone Replacement Therapy and the importance of sex in a woman's life.

15:49 minutes (7.3 MB)

Gill Kamaljeet Singh is General Manager of the International Business Development Unit for Singapore's National Healthcare Group or NHG. Gill took a group of international media on a tour of NHG's Tan Tock Seng Hospital recently. Before the tour he gave us this introduction to health care in Singapore and NHG specifically. You can't see the slides as you listen to the recording, but Gill's passion and the impressive nature of NHG come through loud and clear.

25:55 minutes (11.84 MB)

I spoke earlier today with Ken Erickson, founder of GlobalChoice Healthcare. GlobalChoice isn't a medical tourism agency. It bills itself as a procedure management firm, offering employers a supplemental benefit that extends their provider network to additional US and international locations. Ken and I spoke about his providers and customers, continuity of care, accreditation, credentialing, and malpractice -among other topics.

16:48 minutes (7.72 MB)

25:22 minutes (11.63 MB)

Jonathan Edelheit is an executive at a company that sells limited benefit health plans (sometimes called mini-meds). These plans cover day-to-day expenses but not major surgery. His involvement in medical tourism began as a way to add affordable major medical coverage to mini-med plans. But now he's going a step beyond, by founding the Medical Tourism Association. I spoke with him about the future of medical tourism as an insurance benefit and the plans for the Association.

19:50 minutes (9.12 MB)

I spoke recently with Claire Tan of Avail Corporation. She is organizing the second annual International Medical Travel Conference, which will take place during November in Manila, Philippines.

Claire and I discussed medical tourism in the Philippines and other Asian countries, progress toward attracting US and European medical tourists to the region, and differences between JCI and other international accreditation bodies.

17:01 minutes (7.83 MB)

In 2004 Howard Staab found out he would need surgery to repair a failing heart valve. Unfortunately for Howard he was uninsured. Unable to afford the $200,000 cost for the surgery in North Carolina, but too well off for Medicaid, Howard didn't know what to do.

His partner, Maggi Ann Grace, tried negotiating with Durham Regional Hospital. She offered to pay the hospital the discounted rate that an insurance company would pay. No dice, said the hospital CFO.

23:11 minutes (10.94 MB)

I spoke last night with Elizabeth Nelle, Director of the Office of Product Research and Development in the Philippines' Department of Tourism.

17:52 minutes (8.39 MB)

Christi deMoraes had weight loss surgery in 2001 and moved to Brazil with her family shortly thereafter. While there she underwent body reconstruction surgery. The results were great and the price was reasonable. As she shared this information with peers, she realized there was an opportunity to bring others to Brazil for the same experience --and MedNetBrazil was born.

19:26 minutes (9.05 MB)

James Bae promotes medical tourism on behalf of the Council for Korea Medicine Overseas Promotion and has organized my trip to hospitals in Korea this week. James and I had a chance to chat on our way back from Busan to Seoul this afternoon on the high-speed KTX train. If you hear a bit of background noise keep in mind that we were traveling at almost 300 kilometers per hour!

12:14 minutes (6.04 MB)

I’m in Washington, DC this week for the International Medical Tourism Conference. Earlier today I interviewed Curt Schroeder, Group CEO of Bumrungrad International of Bangkok, Thailand. We spoke about numerous topics including the magnitude and drivers of cost differences between Thailand and the US, the role of information technology at Bumrungrad and Microsoft’s recent purchase of Global Care Solutions, which has partnered with Bumrungrad on software development. We also discussed the number and nature of foreign patients, outcomes measurements, accreditation and the future of medical tourism.

25:15 minutes (12.5 MB)

During the International Medical Tourism Conference I had the chance to interview health care informatics expert Dr. David Kibbe, senior advisor to the American Academy of Family Physicians and Principal of the Kibbe Group. We spoke about the globalization of health care and the direct and indirect impacts it will have on US health care. We also focused on the role of information technology in health care and medical tourism specifically.

13:39 minutes (6.63 MB)

At the International Medical Tourism Conference in Washington, DC last week I spoke with Dr. Robert Crone, who was until just recently President and CEO of Harvard Medical International, (HMI). Over the past several years, HMI has been involved in the development of world-class health care facilities outside of the US, including Wockhardt Hospitals in India and Dubai Healthcare City.

We spoke about accreditation, the impact of the globalization of health care on the US, and the Medical Tourism Association.

14:12 minutes (6.85 MB)

I spoke recently with Ira Nissel, CEO of IMS Global, a medical tourism company based in Israel. Israel is home to some of the most modern medical centers in the world and the country's physicians and scientists are known for medical breakthroughs.

IMS Global has three divisions. One focuses on fertility, another on children and the third on adults. The company works will all of the internationally known medical centers in Israel and provides end-to-end service. Patients are coming from all over the world including the US, Europe, and the former Soviet Union.

16:19 minutes (7.63 MB)