Jordan offers new tourism deal: Save money on surgery

Resource poor Jordan is hoping to turn Americans' misfortune into its fortune.

The largely desert kingdom — already established in the Middle East as a top health-care destination — is stepping up efforts to tap into the multibillion-dollar medical tourism market with a campaign to lure U.S. citizens weary of soaring health-care costs.

"Come here, do your surgery. Afterward, have a vacation, visit Petra, swim in the Dead Sea," Dr. Fawzi al-Hammouri, the head of Jordan's Private Hospitals Association, said, listing the country's most popular tourism destinations.

The hospitals are offering package deals, including air travel.

"All this, inclusive, is less than 25 percent of what you have to pay in the U.S.," he said.

The push is a key part of the country's strategy to develop new services and industries. Unlike many of its neighbors, Jordan lacks oil wealth and relies on tourism, worker remittances, foreign investments and aid for its revenue.

With health costs climbing 8 percent a year in the U.S., experts say medical tourism has been drawing more Americans looking for anything from cardiac care to plastic surgery.

Europeans and Canadians are also traveling abroad for care, tired of the long waiting lists under their comprehensive national health-care systems.

About 600,000 Americans — roughly 25 percent of medical tourists — will travel abroad for surgery this year, according to Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions in Washington, D.C. It's an industry that will gross about $4 billion in 2009, he projected. Other experts estimate it could bring in 10 times that level this year.

More than a vacation with a perk for patients, such trips offer insurers a chance to cut costs, and many are jumping on board.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina, for example, signed alliances last year with about a dozen hospitals worldwide to widen the coverage options for their policyholders.

Jonathan Edelheit, of the Miami-based Medical Tourism Association, said that U.S. insurers can waive all deductibles and co-pays, offer to cover travel costs for the patient and family members, even throw in a cash incentive, and still save tens of thousands of dollars.

Jordan already draws in Arabs from around the Middle East, as much for its medical care as its temperate climate.

The World Bank ranked Jordan No. 1 in the region as a medical-tourism destination, followed closely by Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. The country's medical tourism revenues in 2007 exceeded $1 billion, while more than 250,000 patients from 84 countries were treated here last year, according to a recent Private Hospitals Association study. The majority were medical tourists; others were vacationers who were ill or injured during their stay.

Working in its favor are Jordan's English-speaking doctors, who are trained or affiliated with top U.S. institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Johns-Hopkins.