Some U.S. hospitals try to draw foreigners with flat-rate care, by Andi Atwater of The Wichita Eagle  ---  Escalating health care and insurance costs are driving many Americans overseas for medical care, but some U.S.
hospitals -- including at least one in Wichita -- are aiming to bring foreign patients here by offering deeply discounted
rates.
At the forefront are physician-owned hospitals, whose managers say they have the efficiency and flexibility to charge
extremely low rates and still come out ahead. They call it reverse medical tourism.
Galichia Heart Hospital treated its first out-of-country patient last month, a Canadian who needed a hip replacement
and was willing to pay cash instead of waiting months -- or even years -- for what is considered elective surgery in
Canada.
"They treated us like gold," said Alberta farmer Roy Newman, whose father, Richard Newman, 73, underwent the
surgery April 4 in Wichita.
The Newmans paid $14,000 for a hip replacement, a procedure that averages $41,000 in the U.S., according to
Vimo.com, a cost comparison site.
"People say $14,000 sounds like a lot of money, but for the pain he was in, it's not that much," Roy Newman said. "We
had a great experience. Dad's totally rejuvenated."
The rate race
The medical tourism market is valued at about $20 billion annually with an estimated 150,000 Americans traveling
abroad for medical services in 2006, according to industry figures.