Mexico Weekly and Mexico Today

Foreigners flock to take advantage of substantial savings

Many Americans and Canadians are going to Mexico for medical and dental treatment for substantial savings. Agencies, hospital and dental groups are making it easier to find high quality safe care.

Medical Traveler Yucatán (MTY) is a new U.S.-Canadian managed medical tourism agency service based near Mérida, Yucatán. The company meets patients at the airport and accompanies them throughout their medical stay, Treatment Abroad reported on its website Thursday.

Founder Alan Graham says, “It just doesn’t make good sense, health-wise and money-wise for patients to be deprived of a new heart valve or shoulder surgery. Or pay two to four times what they should for gastric bypass surgery or a face-lift or dental veneers, when Mérida is less than a 2-hour non-stop flight from Houston or Miami.”

MTY matches medical travelers with board certified, English speaking surgeons who have had training, continuing education, or affiliations in the United States. And MTY conducts consumer evaluations of the selected hospital. Patients traveling to Mérida can expect substantial savings of 35 to 75 percent on U.S. prices. The agency mainly uses Mérida’s Star Médica Hospital, a new state of the art, and high-tech facility.

Ángeles Heath International, the medical travel division for the largest private hospital network in Mexico, has a new Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation program, working with the Phoenix Consulting Group. Hospital Ángeles Tijuana is the first hospital in the Ángeles network scheduled to receive its JCI Accreditation. Next, in order, will be Hospital Ángeles Guadalajara, Hospital Ángeles Lomas and Hospital Ángeles Pedregal (both in Mexico City) and Hospital Ángeles Puebla.

Paulo Yberri of Hospital Ángeles Tijuana says, “JCI accreditation of Hospital Ángeles network of hospitals is an important step for our Ángeles Health International Medical Travel program. In the past three and-a-half years, we have had 6,000 medical travelers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. JCI Accreditation will add to the reassurance factor so important to the medical travel process. The JCI Accreditation program will prioritize the Ángeles hospitals most often selected by medical travel patients because of their convenient locations.”

DENTICENTER RECORD DEMAND
DentiCenter, a small but growing chain of full service dental centers on the Mexico-U.S. border along California, Arizona and Texas, opened in 1991 and now faces record demand for its services. Numbers of patients have doubled since 2007. Last year, revenue topped $2 million U.S. dollars. For 2010, it projects $3 million U.S. dollars. All six centers are in Mexico but 97 percent of patients come from the United States, Treatment Abroad reported. The company is preparing to open new clinics later this year; one near El Paso, Texas, and the other near Nogales, Arizona. Current plans are to have 14 dental centers.

Founded by Juan Eng to attract American clients, it sets out to offer services as in the United States. So, unlike many small Mexican dental clinics, all clinics are modern and immaculately clean, with bright comfortable exam rooms. It looks and feels like a typical U.S. dental surgery, except that the staff is Mexican and bilingual. To comfort Americans concerned about Mexico's reputation for crime, Eng locates his clinics right at the U.S. border, often within sight of the crossing. All six DentiCenter locations are within minutes of the U.S. and Mexican border.

DentiCenter's services cost about one third of what they would in the United States, comprehensive orthodontic treatment costs $5,600 U.S. dollars in the United States. At DentiCenter, the price is $1,500 U.S. dollars. The low prices are partly explained by the salaries, dentists earn about one third of what they would be paid in the United States. DentiCenter is the only Mexico-based dental company that complies with the strictest U.S. health guidelines to provide affordable, high quality dental care. It is an in-network provider of two of the largest U.S. dental insurance providers, Delta Dental and Aetna.

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