Vanguard Neurologist

From LATimes.com:

When Andy Dijak injured his right knee playing tennis, he wasn’t surprised that he needed surgery. “It swelled up like a balloon,” said the 50-year-old West Lake resident.
The real shocker was the price tag: $12,000 to $15,000 to repair tattered cartilage. Dijak, a creative director for an entertainment company, has no health insurance, so he started shopping for a deal.
He found it in the northern Mexico city of Monterrey at Christus Muguerza High Specialty Hospital, owned by Dallas-based Christus Health. Here, the staff treated him more like a big shot than a bargain hunter. An English-speaking employee picked him up at the airport. Dijak recuperated in a private hospital room with a flat-screen television and a view of the peaks of the Sierra Madre. His surgeon recorded the operation on video and gave Dijak a DVD copy for his peace of mind.
Total cost, including airfare: $4,500.
“I got better care there than I would have in the United States, unless I were a billionaire,” he said.
Americans have long been willing to leave the country for bargain face-lifts and cut-rate dentistry. But now the availability of top-notch medical services at low cost is enticing a growing number of U.S. patients to developing nations for more sophisticated procedures. Most, like Dijak, are obtaining elective surgeries for ailments that aren’t life-threatening. Increasingly, they are seeking treatment for more serious conditions, including heart maladies and cancer.

Last year, 750,000 Americans traveled abroad for care, according to estimates by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a Washington-based research center that’s part of the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. Other analysts say the numbers are lower. But hardly anyone disputes that medical care, once a highly local business, is going global like never before. By 2010, Deloitte projects, 6 million consumers a year will venture outside the United States for medical treatment.

The idea of jetting off to India for heart surgery might strike some as a radical way to save money. But proponents say it’s a logical outgrowth of the globalization that’s reshaping the industry.

Already, offshore firms handle Americans’ medical records and read their X-rays. Top U.S. hospitals such as Johns Hopkins have established outposts abroad. Rising prosperity in many parts of the developing world is luring foreign-born, U.S.-educated doctors home to practice in modern hospitals catering to increasingly affluent consumers.
Nearly 200 institutions outside the U.S. have been certified by the Joint Commission International, an affiliate of the organization that accredits U.S. hospitals. Medical travel companies are springing up to link American patients with foreign providers eager to boost their profits.