Outsourcing Healthcare Lowers Patient's Cost

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Thousands of Americans are heading abroad for medical care that is too expensive for them in the U.S.

Al Sostrin followed the trend when he went to India for a hip replacement.

The surgery would have cost thousands in the U.S. for Sostrin, who doesn't have health insurance. He delayed the surgery because of its expense.

"I didn't want to go into debt. My parents were always old country, ‘Do what you got to do. Be poor, but don't go into debt,'" Sostrin said.

Sostrin's doctor told him the procedure would cost at least $54,000.

"It was almost like he was the only car dealer in town. That's the way I felt. I felt like there was no real concern for me. It was just like ‘You got a bad hip? Too bad...get it fixed and go on from there,'" he said.

Sostrin decided to look elsewhere. He'd read about Americans going to India for treatment, so he made contact with the Sri Ramakrishna Hospital in India and was accepted as a patient.

Their estimate for the procedure's cost was $5,500.It sounded almost too good to be true, but Sostrin did his research and decided to go.

He bought a $1,700 roundtrip ticket from Nashville through Washington, D.C. to India in January.

He met with his doctors, who evaluated Sostrin's x-rays and then fixed his bad hip.

The total cost of all the x-rays, 18 days in a hospital room, therapy and rehab was $6,000.

In the states, Sostrin said he would have been discharged after only two days.

"The doctors are not greedy. Our charges are less. The hospital also doesn't charge much for the patient. So everything is more affordable," Sostrin's doctor Dr. G. Bala with the Sri Ramakrishna Hospital said.

"I feel like I've been given a new life. To be without the pain I can be myself again," Sostrin said.

He was happy that he didn't have to go into debt for the rest of his life to be pain-free.

Sostrin still limps. He's in rehab, but said the pain is gone.

Medical tourism brings millions of dollars into India. There is a wide range of services, from joint replacement to heart bypass and plastic surgery.