medical tourism, health tourism Medical tourism is a growing trend for Americans who want to combine a vacation with a medical procedure in a foreign country where the costs for medical care is far less than what it is in the US. According to one news article, last year 150,000 Americans went abroad for health tourism purposes, elective or necessary. There was an article in the March 2008 Business Week that reported the large insurer, Blue Cross, is encouraging its members to go abroad for medical procedures that would cost a lot of money in the US. It's hard to believe that a company here would recommend leaving the country, but they are. They even pay the travel expenses for people to take advantage of medical tourism and lower costs for necessary medical procedures. Some even throw in a cash incentive for people. The article went on to state that even companies that self-insure are looking into medical tourism for their employees. These companies believe that outsourcing worked well for call centers and manufacturing, so why shouldn't it work for medicine too.