Outsourced Senior Parents to Foreign Nursing Homes: A New Form of Medical Tourism
Living in a nursing home is an extremely expensive proposition in the United States. It can cost $40,000 or $50,000 to pay for such a habit, and in order to alleviate some of the costs, many families are now outsourcing their elderly parent's care to nursing homes in foreign countries. This practice might seem a bit extremely, but it is also extremely cost effective.
The Chicago Tribune recently profiled a family who sent his elderly parents to a nursing home in India that was built to western standards. The man sent his 89 year old mother who suffers from advanced Parkinson's disease and his 93 year old father who has Alzheimer's disease to India. The cost for them is only about $15.00 a day, or about $5,500 a year! For this price, they receive better care there than in most nursing homes in the United States. The father has a full-time personal assistant and a cook. The mother gets massages, physical therapy and 24-hour staffing for any needs that she might have!
$5,500 a year is next to nothing compared to the nursing home fees the individual would have paid in metropolitan Chicago, where the cheapest nursing home to be had is $6,600 a month.
This is not a practice that's to be recommended, since your senior parents may not be on this world too long, and you don't want to find out that they are about to pass away and you cannot get to them since they are half a world away, but it's an interesting result of globalization, the growing practice of medical tourism, and seniors living abroad.
Sending senior parents overseas to receive medical care really breaks some of the paradigms we have about senior care in the United States. If an Indian company can provide very high quality health care in a nursing home for just $5,000 a year, why can't we in the United States? We certainly will have to pay more in salary, but chances are there are a number of other methods and means that American nursing homes could model that would enable them to save a substantial amount of money.
Published by Matthew Paulson
I am a very busy undergraduate, I'm involved with nine different campus organizations and work five different jobs. Most notably, I am the editor-in-chief of DSU's Trojan Times. View profile
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11 Comments
Post a Commentyou don't want to find out that they are about to pass away and you cannot get to them since they are half a world away, but it's an interesting result of globalization, the growing
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I am paying $6700 per month for my dementia wife in a nursing home. That is 65% of my income. Does anyone know of a cheaper place that is decent ?
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An interesting read. Very few nursing homes for the elderly exist in the Philippines. I know one and it's run by nuns. Our culture expects us to take care of our aging parents and relatives no matter what the cost.
Believe me, it is much more than 10% of our income. My family is dealing with this right now. My father is in a nursing home vent unit after suffering from his second stroke, pneumonia and a collapsed lung. We have had to see him so mistreated in the past three weeks he has been there - being left naked and uncovered for hours, the feeding tube leaking and disconnected, rough manhandling by the nurses and aids because he cannot wash himself. And still his retirement insurance will not cover the balance that Medicare will not pay. So we will either have to find a policy to cover that amount just for the remainder of the time that Medicare will approve his stay, or pay the balance ourselves, which amounts to at least 5k per month. Then after his 100 days that have been approved by Medicare are up, either we have to put him in a nursing home, or bring him home and pay for 24-hour care at home, which Medicare will only pay for 4 hours per day. So to say that it is only 10% of our income is
My father lives in Costa Rica and is in need of a care home now. He is at the point where he is unable to travel back to Canada nor does he want to.
He has been retired in Costa Rica for 20 years and it is now his home.
Even though he has live there for 20 yrs he does not speak Spanish well.
He is in need of a care home that has an English speaking staff....PLEASE HELP!
I have searched for months with no luck.
Again PLEASE HELP.
Best Regards
Does someone knows where in India was this actually located, i am from India and would like to avail the such healthcare services available. Any contact info would be appreciated
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The answer to all this is cradle-to-grave universal health care. Sure, it's potentially expensive. But, we're talking about dignity here. FWIW, the AMA did a study of bankruptcies in Chicago in 2001 ... and found that 50% of these bankruptcies included onerous medical debt. And what happens to these bankrupt people if they get terribly ill following bankruptcy? I hope that whoever is elected President in 2008 takes this under consideration.
This is thought of as a GOOD thing ? My God how far have we fallen when we would rather see our parents or grandparents in another country than spend more than 10 percent of our income on them. Among not only strangers but strangers they can't understand. I suppose if an Alzheimer's patient has reached a certain advanced state it almost doesn't matter but it can only accelerate the disease.