IN UTAH, AN INSURANCE company is paying patients to travel to Mexico where their prescription drugs are cheaper.
PEHP Health and Benefits, which provides health insurance to the state's public employees, will fly patients who need certain prescriptions to San Diego and then transport them to Tijuana, Mexico, via private car. The company will then give the patient cash back so he or she can enjoy some of the money saved by their efforts, PEHP Managing Director Chet Loftis wrote in an email to U.S. News.
Loftis says the concept of incentivizing people to travel to another country for less expensive health care isn't new to the U.S. But it's just starting in Utah thanks to a bill passed this year (HB 19) requiring PEHP to provide a "cash back" incentive to those who travel for less-expensive prescriptions.
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And according to Loftis, employers are also benefiting from this medical tourism. The prescriptions included in PEHP's offer cost about $13,500 for a 90-day supply, he says. Even with the travel expenses and $500 cash back, Loftis claims the employer still saves between 40 percent and 60 percent.
"Why wouldn't we pay $300 to go to San Diego, drive across to Mexico and save the system tens of thousands of dollars?" said Republican state Rep. Norman Thurston, who sponsored HB 19. "If it can be done safely, we should be all over that," Thurston said, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune.