In the basic sense, it is when people travel abroad to seek medical treatment. Typically to less-developed countries. These countries tend to offer similar services but at a lower cost. This is widely done in the U.S. particularly of recent immigrants who still have familial ties to the old country.
Medical tourism can work in the other way, those from lesser-developed traveling to those that are developed, etc.
I recently took part in this fad when I visited my family in Central America. I decided to ultimately get my eyes checked while I was visited and get new glasses and contacts. Initially, I was not going to do it because usually it takes a few weeks for them to be prepared but they guaranteed it would be finished before I needed to leave the country.
This is a strange part of the debt-free journey, however, since I had to spend money to travel to the country in the first place. This is why I used budget airlines – Norwegian and Spirit. With these two airline I can lower my cost significantly by only traveling with hand-baggage. I also have the added benefit of paid vacation and I can visit my family.
So, I got my eyes checked, new glasses, transitions lenses and those that block blue light, and 2 boxes of contact lenses. All ready within a week for a low price of…..
*drum roll*
$350.00 USD.
It would have been significantly less but I wanted to look fly in my new Ray-ban frames. Please do not judge me.
Considering my prescription and how long it normally takes for my glasses to be prepared I would be looking at a minimum of double that price in the U.S. and triple that in Sweden. At a minimum. It would obviously be more, because when I tried to get basic frames with lenses in Stockholm, it would have set me back a cool $1000.00.
Now, I just need to go back and see the dentist.
Have any of you done this kind of thing?