Laser Eye Surgery Medical Tourism

A Santa Clara doctor quoted Howard Aschwald, from the USA), a price of $4,895 for surgery to correct myopia. The cost in India was $1,250. The surgery was performed by an Indian doctor trained in London using laser equipment made in Germany - so new that it hasn't yet been licensed in the United States.

Aschwald said he would have spent $2,000 in the United States for the CT angiogram that cost him $225 in India.

It took the Aschwalds 25 hours to fly to India, not counting a six-hour layover in Singapore. They paid $1,450 apiece for airfare and $185 a night to stay at The Orchid, an ecology hotel in the exclusive Bollywood section of Mumbai where the eye clinic was located.

They arrived on a Wednesday. Aschwald had his CT angiogram performed the next day. On Sunday, he had his eye surgery and on the next Tuesday the couple flew to another area in India and began touring. The temperatures during their 17-day visit were in the 80s. It rained only once.

Because Americans going abroad for medical treatment often combine business and pleasure, the trend is typically referred to as medical tourism.

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