What would you recommend to the CEO of the software company with regard to medical tourism?

In a word document, answer the questions associated with the case study. You must cite a minimum of two refences using APA format.

https://jsums.instructure.com/courses/2316250/files/123717879?wrap=1

Outsourcing Medical
Care
Case Study
Nancy Shanks-
Introduction to Health Care Manager
A large
software company in the Silcom Valley was reviewing the costs of its health
benefits. Their costs had continued to rise sharply in recent years and the
Board of Directors had questioned this at the last Finance Committee meeting.
The CEO had, in turn, asked the Human Resources Department to explore options
for saving costs. Among the recommendations that the HR Director proposed was
to perhaps request that their health insurance plan evaluate the option of
possibly carving out a selected subset of medical care procedures for outsourcing.
The idea, she explained, was to provide a medical tourism benefit for employees
to travel abroad to receive those types of medical care at a reduced rate.

The CEO
wanted more information. In response, the HR Director pointed out the huge
differential in charges for certain procedures in the United States versus
other countries. For example, Keckley and Underwood (2008) had estimated the
cost of knee surgery in this country at 11,692 in comparison to $1,398 for the
procedure in, as well as travel cost to, foreign countries. Similar
differentials had been shown for other procedures.
The
researchers also estimated that by 2017, 15,75 million Americans would be
“outbound tourist” going to other
countries for care and they projected that this would result in between $30.3
and $79.5 billion being spent” by Americans on medial tourism in the same year
(Keckley & Underwood, 2008). Having done her homework, the HR Director knew
that all was not rosy and pointed out that medical tourism was having a
significant impact on health care providers in the United States. In addition,
she found several articles that indicated a number of countries that were
performing organ transplants had obtained black market kidneys from poor donors
desperate for money or prisoners about to be executed, a practice illegal in
the United States (Shafer & Comstock, 2011), “Declaration of Istanbul,
2008.
In addition
to biomedical and ethical issues, she also listed the following considerations
that had been identified by Marlowe (2007) that definitely needed to be
addressed:
“Quality of
care
Saving
potential
Public
perception
ERISA
fiduciary obligation
HIPAA
privacy
Travel-related
exposures
Protected
groups
Tax
implications”
The CEO was
intrigued and recommended that the company explore the medical tourism option
with their health insurance plan, being sure to report back on the issues
listed above. He wasn’t convinced, but was willing to get yet more information.
Discussion
Questions
1. Elaborate on each of the concerns
listed above. Are there both pros and cons for each?
2. In addition to potential concerns
about the quality of care provided in foreign countries, do you think there are
also major concerns about follow-up care, access to medical records and getting
a US physician to take over the postoperative care of patients treated
elsewhere? Discuss each of these area.
3. What are the liability issues that
the company should be concerned about?
4. Is medical care just like any other
product that can be outsourced? Or, do you think that there are ethical issues
with outsourcing medical care? Explain your answer.
5. What would you recommend to the CEO
of the software company with regard to medical tourism?
6. If you needed a kidney, had less than
one year to live, and no prospect in sight of getting one in the United States
would you be willing to travel to a foreign county for the transplant? What if
the organ came from a donor who may have been a destitute person? What if it
came from a prisoner about to be executed? What if you didn’t know the donor’s
medical history? Provide a rationale for your response and create a plan for a
cost effective and ethical organ transplant process.

Kongstvedt, Peter R.
(2020). Health Insurance and Managed
Care, Jones Bartlett, Burlington, MA: ISBN:9781284152098

Last Completed Projects