[IP] Insured in US, treated in Chennai (India) at one-tenth of US cost
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Insured in US, treated in Chennai (India) at one-tenth of US
cost**
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:55:21 -0500
From: Ram Narayanan <ram@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
*Dear Dave:
This could well be the beginning of a proces that may eventually result
in a
multi-billion dollar business between the US and India that will:
1) help significantly reduce the mounting cost of health insurance and
health care in the United States;
2) encourage a substantial flow of US investment into India?s hospital
industry and related infrastructure with forward and backward linkages,
including medical tourism facilities; and
3) contribute considerably to the expansion of health care benefit to
India?s millions.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Ram Narayanan
US-India Friendship
**
*http://www.usindiafriendship.net/*
*http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/08/stories/2006020817240300.htm*
*
THE HINDU, FEBRUARY 8, 2006
*Insured in U.S., treated in India*
M.Dinesh Varma
CHENNAI : In a twist to the win-win outsourcing game, a U.S. insurance
firm has extended cover for its Chicago client undergoing treatment in a
Chennai hospital.
The ball was set rolling when Chicago-based Indian parents of
three-year-old Rakesh Ram Mahesh expressed a preference to treat their
son at Frontier Lifeline hospital in Chennai. The boy had been diagnosed
with a hole in the heart (Ventricular Septal Defect) and aortic valve
incompetence, which required early correction.
*The insurance company? Blue Cross Blue Shield ? eventually agreed to
foot the bill, but not without some thorough homework on the track
record of the institution. The firm went the distance by even
despatching a team to Chennai to inspect the facilities at the Frontier
Lifeline.
The inspection team gathered details such as the number of paediatric
surgeries done the previous year and the mortality rate before the
sanction came through.
*
"All we were asked to bear was the cost of the flight tickets," said the
boy?s mother, M. Shakeela, whose husband Murugan Mahesh hails from
Chennai. They had heard about the hospital from various sources.
"More than promotionals, the expectations sparked by word-of-mouth is
all the more hard to match," K. M. Cherian, head of Frontier Lifeline
points out.
*The cost of the surgery here cost only 10 per cent of the $50,000 it
would have amounted to in any U.S. hospital. After the successful
surgery last week, Rakesh is due to be discharged on February 11.
*
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