Mojitos and an MRI

08.10.2024 - 10:49 / insider.com / Kim Kardashian

When Josef Woodman's shoulder gave out in 2012 — strained from chopping firewood on his farm outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina — he said he was quoted between $2,400 and $3,200 for an MRI at Duke University Hospital.

He didn't want to shell out the cost of a nice vacation just to find out he didn't need surgery, so he decided to wait, even as his mobility decreased to the point where he had to severely limit his farm work and could hold only one-third of the weight he normally could. Two years later, his patience was rewarded: While on a work trip to Bangkok, he got an MRI for just $460, landing an appointment two days after his consultation at a hospital.

"The results came back and they said, 'You don't need surgery. You've got a separated rotator cuff,'" Woodman said. The surgeon prescribed physical therapy, which he completed in the US. "The shoulder got way better," he told me. He was glad he waited.

Like Woodman, millions of Americans travel abroad for medical procedures each year, saving anywhere from 40% to 90% on the services they receive. Many don't have health insurance or don't get coverage for the procedures they seek out — dental work and cosmetic procedures like breast implants and liposuction are by far the most popular. There's also a small but growing market for people seeking thorough checkups and testing abroad. An ascendant medical-tourism industry is offering these types of screenings, including MRIs and electrocardiograms, in beautiful locations around the world and packaging them with transportation, accommodations, food, shopping, and sightseeing. And with an increasing obsession with "wellness" and celebrities like Kim Kardashian promoting full-body imaging, it's easy to see why more and more Americans are looking to pair cabanas with CAT scans.

"If you've got some kind of joint pain, or if you have some kind of condition that isn't progressing, incorporate that into your normal travel plans," Woodman, now 72, said. In 2007, he founded Patients Beyond Borders, a healthcare-consulting company that helps Americans plan medical vacations, after growing up taking trips to Mexico for dental work with his dad. "In any kind of industrialized nation, you'd be able to get access to good-quality screening and people who can interpret the results," he said.

Medical tourism comes with risks; the American Medical Association recommends going only to medical facilities recognized by international accrediting bodies and following up testing with care at home. But a growing number of Americans are willing to take those risks, as suites of tests abroad are often cheaper and faster than just a single test in the US.

"We just don't have a preventative-oriented society here in the United