Mr. Larry Boress, President and CEO of Midwest Business Group shares his view on medical travel opportunities with Mr Naresh Jadeja, President, IWHTA.
Mr. Bores: Is Presidnet and CEO at Midwest Business Group of Health one of nation's leading coalitions of private and public employers. MBGH's 75+ members employ over 2 million workers, spending greater than US $ 2.3 billion on health care benefits. MBGH offers employers a variety of health benefit educational seminars, networking opportunities, quality and community initiatives, demonstration projects and group purchasing programs. Members of MBGH includes top employers like Boeing, United Airlines, Abbot labs., Pfizer, J & J, Caterpillar, BMS etc.
Mr. Naresh Jadeja : Your members are big employers and you help them design their own benefits and how they can get more value for the benefit dollars they are spending, how do you see medical travel industry from an employer's perspective ? What do you have to say about opportunities in medical travel industry and what do you think are major barriers and obstacles for it's growth ?
Mr. Boress : Medical travel is an intriguing industry. It offers promise for giving world class quality treatment at one tenth of the cost, opportunity to get treatment from US trained doctors and English speaking health care professionals and to experience new culture and new country. There are opportunities as well some barriers and problems. Current situation is that big employers don't cover medical travel into their health plans, employees are not very educated about it, Unions are not asking for it. For many years there are many center of excellence but employers can't get their people to go outside their own town. The reason is they want to be next to their friends and family, they tend to be surrounded by ancillary people, they are more comfortable with the people they know. Also employers are thinking that how do I get my people to get back to work quicker and they have fiscal responsibility for the coverage they are offering. Unions are not supporting it because they think this is just a way to cut cost. Also we even don't know the quality of US hospitals so how can you show equal quality compared to US hospitals. Accreditation doesn't mean anything, even within a single hospital quality varies dramatically, the care varies, so there are no. of factors and barriers why employers cannot consider Medical travel as part of their benefit program. However there are number of employers who has center of excellence for year, where they send people for transplants, for specialty treatments, cancer care, bariatric care, and I think there is a value in that, it comes from knowing the data, outcome, and cost and how that compare with what is in you plan. So if overseas hospitals can show equal quality compared to the US hospitals, and it is accepted by health plan then there is a big opportunity. Health plan is very important because they are the one who decide who is in the network and who is not, it's not the employer, even self employed people relies on the available health plan. So I think it comes down to what is the outcome, what is the quality and cost compared to what they have locally.
Mr. Naresh Jadeja : What is necessary for the growth of the Medical Travel Industry ? Is there any successful strategies that can be applied to convince employers to take advantage of Medical Travel benefits ?
Mr. Boress : You got to have poster boys for the people who are going there, find a CEO who has gone overseas for medical treatment, it is interesting that we find many of our members, they do things because their CEO says he want them to take a look at it or he want them to do it , it started out with HMO's, it started out with the consumer driven program, it started with employee incentive programs, It's always a CEO, who has an experience or has read about some new benefit strategies and approaches and who said yes, I want my company to do this. You got to find some champions who can do this or a spouse of CEO who has gone there . You need to tell these companies to talk publicly to their employees and other employers about how good quality is there at overseas facilities and their experience and how they saved money . You have to get the unions and other employees to say this is what we want, we want this part of our coverage, when I am at the negotiation table, this is one pieces I want to negotiate on. So you should have demand from the bottom and demand from the top people and then you have to convince health plans to include you in the network and say that we are comfortable with the quality of care and cost and we will cover it.
Mr. Naresh Jadeja : Many big employers like Walmart or Boeing has offices outside USA and they are providing world class health benefit packages to those employees in their home countries in Europe or Asia. Do you think it will be easy for them to understand and adapt medical travel as an option ?
Mr. Boress : I think you are right, lot of our members have their offices or factories outside US or employees from overseas offices are coming to US for projects. They are more comfortable going back to their countries for the treatment and I think the challenge for the medical travel industry is to get the stories of these people, say if someone is from Malaysia but works for Boeing in Seattle, talk to them and put up their stories, let them tell about their good experience and put them into company employee news letters, there is no doubt that people in south would like to go to central America, Mexico or where they are from. They are more comfortable with the culture and language so they will be interested in Medical Travel option. There is no doubt that many changes that comes in employee program are result of peer to peer discussions and pressure, one example is if employer cannot enroll their employees in the their wellness program yet they find some employee who were benefited from it and started talking about that program with colleagues, then people will start taking advantage of it. This peer to peer networking is great so if your co worker talks about how good the quality was and how interesting the culture is then more and more people would like to take advantage of it and employers will definitely work towards the interest of their employees.
Mr. Naresh Jadeja : What is your personal opinion about medical travel industry ?
Mr. Boress : As I said medical travel industry is intriguing, the opportunity that you can get same quality treatment at one tenth of the cost with US trained doctors at good accredited facility and you get to experience a new culture and new country is very hard to ignore. If I was exposed to it more, then I would be definitely interested in seeing it or may be I would have taken a group of US employers over to see by them selves and talk about it and when they come back to US they can take Medical Travel into consideration. I think this is an opportunity that employers cannot afford to not to take a look at it.
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