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...unable to have the procedure he wanted covered through his U.S. insurer, Kaiser Permanente. The cost out of pocket, he said, was "outrageous" at $3,000 to $5,000. So Morton and his fellow deputies lobbied their union, which came up with an alternative. The union contracted with two doctors, one in Irvine, Calif., and one in Tijuana, both of which offered the deputies discounted rates. But the Tijuana discount was far steeper: $1,000 for the surgery, as opposed to $2,000 in Irvine. The union was impressed with the Mexican doctor's references, and Morton, who drove down...
...Blue Shield and Health Net cross-border plans operate differently: any U.S. citizen or legal resident can enroll through an employer. Blue Shield's Access Baja HMO lets members who live or work within 50 miles of the border choose a primary-care doctor in Tijuana or Mexicali (convenient for agricultural workers in California's Imperial Valley), while those farther away must choose U.S. doctors for themselves but can enroll spouses and children living in Mexico with providers in those cities. Salud con Health Net offers HMO plans with similar rules. It also offers a statewide PPO plan that allows...
...high-quality, licensed hospital in Baja California costs only from $600 to $1,100 a day. The average salary last year of general practitioners in California was $149,000, compared with the $35,000 to $50,000 earned by Mexican doctors. "It depends on the specialty, but for the most part the doctor's profession is not lucrative at all," says SIMNSA's Frank Carrillo. One reason doctors in Mexico are more easily accessible, he says, is that they work longer hours to earn better...
Lowering out-of-pocket costs is a big draw for cross-border patients who can see doctors in Mexico. A typical Health Net co-payment that costs $15 in the U.S. will cost $5 with a Mexican provider, says Ana Andrade, an associate vice president for Health Net of California. But it's not all about economics. The plans' mostly Latino members are also attracted by doctors who speak Spanish and who generally spend more time consulting with patients than do their U.S. counterparts. "The service is warm and empathetic," says Eduardo Pesqueira, a director of economic development for Mexico...
...only cheaper ($26 a month for herself and her teenage daughter, as opposed to the $170 she says she paid with Blue Cross), it's also friendlier. In the U.S., "they leave you waiting in the examining room a long time," Click said one recent afternoon in her doctor's consulting room, an office with comfy chairs and a massive desk--the standard setup for Mexican clinics. "Here they pay more attention to you. They listen...