If you are thinking it’s the drug manufacturing that is outsourced, you are wrong. Nor is it the bookkeeping that is outsourced. What is outsourced is the patient himself or rather he chooses to have his treatment done offshore. The driving cause is the high cost of health care in his home country. Or in certain other cases, the long waits before he can get the needed treatment.

So, medical outsourcing or offshore medical which is also commonly known as medical tourism is the practice of seeking health care abroad. But, who provides these outsourcing services?

There are lots of offshore health care providers in the form of hospitals and clinics participating in this business. Some of them can be found on the other side of the border while others may be a few oceans across. Examples include those in India, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico, Turkey, Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, and so on. Some of them give excellent service – even superior to what you can get at home using the latest technology and by world-renowned surgeons – while others may not be as great. To show their commitment towards top quality, many providers also have international accreditations like JCI, JACHO, ISO, etc. Some have strategic alliances with well-known US health care providers like Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical International and Johns Hopkins.

International health care providers are able to provide you with high quality treatment at an affordable cost mainly because of low labor cost, low administrative cost, low malpractice cost and low living cost in their country. That’s the same reason why IT companies started outsourcing.

Now the obvious question arises – how do you find the right provider for your needs? The answer is do research. There are lots of resources available – news, articles, blogs, forums, testimonials, etc. Many people find it useful to work with a health tourism facilitator or medical tourism facilitator like Healthbase (http://www.healthbase.com). They are specialized facilitators who carefully screen and partner with international healthcare providers that meet up to the high standards of patients from the US, the UK, Canada, etc. They also help patients with all the logistics involved in getting a surgery abroad.

There are a few other things that you will need to do for a successful experience in getting your surgery overseas. Getting into the details of all of them is beyond the scope of this article. Here are some of them: doing a thorough research on the surgery in question to establish your suitability for it as well as for medical tourism, getting to learn about your medical travel destination, arranging all your medical records and sending them to the international hospital, securing passport and visa, booking tickets, and more. You may want to start here: http://www.healthbase.com/resources/medical-tourism/medical-tourism-information.

Earlier, people would go abroad mostly for elective cosmetic procedures which were not covered by insurances. Today, people outsource their orthopedic procedures as well as cardiac surgeries as well as organ transplants. It’s not just individuals who are interested in this trend to save money. Medical outsourcing has also received attention from health insurance companies who have started offering overseas treatment plans to expand their customer base, and from employers who have included it as a benefit to their employees.

At the time of writing this article, neither Merriam Webster nor Dictionary.com had an entry for “medical outsourcing”. But given the speed with which the trend is spreading, pretty soon they will have to update their dictionaries.

You can learn more about medical outsourcing, the details of the process, international healthcare providers and arrange your surgery by logging on to http://www.healthbase.com. Healthbase.com is a medical tourism facilitator committed to providing low-cost high quality medical travel services to the global medical consumer.

The author works for Healthbase which is a medical tourism facilitator connecting patients to leading hospitals around the world for low cost high quality surgical care in various categories including bariatric, orthopedic, cardiac, spinal, dental, cosmetic, laparoscopic, etc. To learn more, call 1-888-691-4584, email info.hb @ healthbase.com, or visit http://www.healthbase.com.

Read on to learn how your everyday habits can lead to heart conditions and how you can take active steps to minimize your risk factors.

1. Eating habit

What you eat and in how much quantity has a direct impact on the health of your body's blood pumping mechanism. According to the Framingham Heart Study, a longitudinal study that has helped scientists understand the development and progression of heart disease and its risk factors since 1948, the higher your blood cholesterol level, the greater your risk for heart disease. Following a diet low in saturated fat reduces your cholesterol levels. One such diet program known as the Pritikin Program that focuses on unprocessed or minimally processed straight-from-nature foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, starchy vegetables, lean meat and seafood, has been found to be effective in preventing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and obesity. It is important not just to eat the right stuff but also to watch the amount of your intake. It is common knowledge that obesity increases the risk of heart disease so maintaining a healthy weight is very important to achieving a healthy heart. Read more about this at the Healthbase website.

2. Drinking habit

Although research has revealed an association between moderate alcohol consumption and lower risk for coronary heart disease (CHD), experts believe that drinking more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day increases a person's risk for high blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease. It should also be kept in mind that moderate drinking is not risk free. Alcohol consumption can lead to several other chronic illnesses like cancer, liver cirrhosis, and trauma.

3. Smoking habit

Cigarette smokers have a higher risk of developing several chronic disorders including fatty buildups in arteries called atherosclerosis, which is a leading cause of death from smoking. Many studies have shown that cigarette smoking is a major cause of coronary heart disease, which leads to heart attack. Studies also show that cigarette smoking is an important risk factor for stroke. Women who take oral contraceptives and smoke increase their risk of stroke many times. Smoking also creates a higher risk for peripheral arterial disease and aortic aneurysm. Also, about 22,700 to 69,600 premature deaths from heart and blood vessel disease are caused by other people's smoke each year. So, by smoking you harm not only yourself but also your innocent neighbors.

4. Exercising habit

A sedentary lifestyle with complete physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke and is linked to cardiovascular mortality. Regular physical activity helps control blood lipid abnormalities, diabetes and obesity. Aerobic exercises such as brisk walking, jogging, skipping rope, bicycling and dancing can help reduce blood pressure and are good for your heart when done regularly for 30 minutes or longer every day or on most days. Even moderately intense physical activity such as walking for pleasure, gardening and yard work are beneficial for the heart when done regularly on a daily basis.

5. Behavioral habit

Anger and uncontrolled stress can lead to high blood pressure which in turn increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease and stroke. Anger and stress management techniques can be helpful in reducing your stress level and, therefore, your risk factor for heart disease. Some examples of reducing your stress level are practicing yoga, meditation and laughter therapy.

Prevention is much better and much less expensive than cure. Cardiac treatments like CABG (coronary artery bypass graft), cardiac valve repair, cardiac valve replacement, bypass surgery, double bypass surgery, triple bypass surgery, quadruple bypass surgery, heart transplant, and so on can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It takes discipline and perseverance to incorporate changes into your daily habits but it is not impossible to do so. So talk to your physician today about how to change your habits and your lifestyle for a healthier heart.

The author works for Healthbase (www.healthbase.com), a medical tourism facilitator that connects cardiac and other patients to high quality surgical and non-surgical healthcare and dental care abroad for a fraction of cost in the US, Canada and UK.

Surgery abroad or medical tourism as the concept is more commonly known has become quite popular recently. It is not limited to cheap dental surgery in Mexico or inexpensive cosmetic surgery in Costa Rica or Panama any more. People are traveling halfway around the world for all sorts of procedures and those include orthopedic surgeries, fertility treatments, and even critical operations like organ transplantation, cancer treatment and cardiac surgeries.

But, is surgery abroad for everyone?

Obviously, overseas surgery is not an option if you are being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance at the time you need the surgery. This is common sense. However, there are many other occasions when you can benefit from obtaining treatment overseas for non-emergency conditions. But, to be able to seek treatment abroad, you should at least be fit enough to travel to your destination by plane or train or whichever mode of transportation you are using.

You can benefit from medical tourism if:

1. You do not have insurance. Unsurprisingly, a large number of medical travelers fall into this category. Not having health insurance can mean prohibitive prices charged by the hospital. It’s no secret that in the US, uninsured or self-pay patients are charged two to three times more for hospital care than those covered by health insurance. As reprehensible a practice as it may be, the patient is the one who has to take the blow. According to one Harvard study, half of personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical expenses. Filing for bankruptcy is not a solution, flying for medical tourism is. Medical tourism can save you 50% to 90% of the typical price your US hospital charges.

2. You have limited insurance. Limited insurance could mean high deductibles, high co-payments or high out-of-pocket expenses. Or it may mean that the medical care you need is not covered under your catastrophic insurance plan. In many ways, being underinsured is no better than being uninsured except that you are still paying your monthly insurance premium for either very little or nothing in return.

3. The treatment you are seeking is elective. Most health insurance plans out there do not cover elective surgeries. So even if you have insurance coverage and you know the procedure you need is not elective, it is very easy for your insurer to prove otherwise so they do not have to reimburse you if you went ahead and sought the treatment anyway. This is especially true in the case of many cosmetic and dental procedures.

4. The treatment you are seeking is not available in your country. For example, until some time ago, Birmingham Hip Resurfacing surgery (BHR) was not available in the United States. It was approved by the FDA only recently. So many patients from the US would go to India for the procedure. Patients still prefer to have this surgery in India as the surgeons there are much more experienced in performing BHR than the surgeons in the US and the cost is a lot cheaper there compared to the US.

5. There is a long wait for the treatment you are seeking. This can lead to deterioration in your condition and your quality of life. According to Jill Misangyi, a Canadian who went to India for her spinal decompression surgery to cure her 16-year old back pain, “Under the medicare system in Canada, waiting lists just to see specialists are 6 months to a couple of years, and another couple of years before or if they will do the surgery on you.” Medical tourism is the answer to the problems of many such patients who have spent a lifetime waiting for their turn and are still in the queue.

Once you have established your candidacy for medical tourism you should do a thorough research and planning before setting out on your medical trip abroad.

You can learn more about the growing trend of medical tourism, international healthcare facilities and surgeons and the details of the medical tourism process by logging on to the Healthbase website. Healthbase is a medical tourism facilitator committed to providing low-cost high quality medical travel services to the global medical consumer.

About the Author: The author works for Healthbase which is a medical tourism facilitator connecting patients to leading hospitals around the world for low cost high quality surgical care in various categories including bariatric, orthopedic, cardiac, spinal, dental, cosmetic, laparoscopic, etc. To learn more, call 1-888-691-4584, email info.hb@healthbase.com, or visit http://www.healthbase.com