Medical Departures in the News

?EDICAL TOURISM IS bouncing back from the pandemic and overcoming its shady reputation for botched plastic surgery. More than 2 million Americans travel abroad annually now for everything from dental work to orthopedic surgeries to stem cell therapies.

Cancun and Tijuana are the most popular destinations in Mexico, according to Medical Departures, a medical tourism website. A single cycle for IVF in the country costs about $4,500 with another $3,500 for medication.

Dental Departures, which says it is the world's largest dental tourism company by revenue, is expecting bookings from Britain to jump 15% to a record high in 2023.

“As you’re seeing inflation at the pump, at the grocery store, you’re also seeing it at the hospital. The price of medicine and dental care has gone up and we’ve been a benefactor of that,” Paul McTaggart, CEO and founder of medical travel agency Medical Departures, told CNBC.

In Mexico, American travelers can save anywhere from 60% to 80% on popular dental procedures. For example, the average cost of dental implants in Mexico is $1,190 per tooth, compared with $3,822 in the States, according to Medical Departures, a medical tourism agency and comparison website.

[Interview with] Paul McTaggart. CEO of Dental Departures (Seattle): “A dangerous trend in dentistry today is the high and rising costs of dental care, forcing millions of patients worldwide to forgo treatment, thereby compromising their overall health and creating larger, costlier conditions down the road.”

Medical Departures...has booked 130,000 trips in the past 10 years.

Medical Departures, which helps Americans plan medical tourism trips, sends more than 100,000 people to Mexico for procedures each year.

Nearly 780,000 people were projected to leave the U.S. for health care in 2022, according to data from the medical travel website Medical Departures.

HealthCare.com reviewed 2022 figures provided by leading platform Medical Departures, an Expedia for medical travel...263,000 Americans are expected to seek medical treatments overseas in 2022, up from 115,000 in the pandemic year 2020.

Dental Departures...has booked more than 130,000 patients in some 40 destinations worldwide, making the organization the largest online dental travel agency.

According to Dental Departures, the average price for a root canal, build-up, and crown is $2,094 in the United States. For Americans looking to trim the total cost of dental work, traveling abroad may be the best option.

Analysis by US health insurer, HealthCare.com shows that for most Americans, medical travel means heading south of the border to Mexico, for dental treatment.

...proprietary data from Medical Departures, an “Expedia for medical travel,” found...in 2020 an estimated 290,000 Americans went abroad for dental and medical procedures. The previous year, some 780,000 sought outbound services. Projected analysis for 2021 is 650,000

...Americans are willing to travel to Asia, mainly Thailand and the Philippines, for other medical services. Bangkok is their favourite destination for cosmetic procedures such as botox/fillers, breast augmentation, hair transplants and rhinoplasty.