Big Savings on Common Surgeries, Cosmetic Surgery and Dental Implants

It is always amazing that Westerners, especially Americans, can be sold on traveling to such exotic places as India or Vietnam for what often times amounts to very dubious medical tourism, but have always refused or feared traveling to Russia, even with Moscow's abundance of top notch facilities in a European capital.

Of course this is not the case for Russians living in the US or other Western countries. Such Russians often go “home” to see the relatives and get themselves fixed up for pennies on the American "health care" dollar.

In 2023, global medical tourism was a $129 billion industry, projected to almost triple within the next 7 years. Partially this is driven by exploding U.S. health care costs, which are equally tied to collapsing quality and a declining service factor. We see a similar trend in the collapse of normal medical services in places such as the United Kingdom with its overburdened National Health Service, Canada, France and Germany, partially driven by massive immigration, and partly by decades of under investment.

Now, to the short and sweet of it: the topic of medical and major dental procedure tourism in Russia.

Photo credit: A hospital corridor in Russia

iStock image uploaded by Sviatlana Lazarenka November 2019

iStock image ID: 1187553417

While Russia does not even make the top 14 list of global medical tourist destinations, this piece shows a gem for what it is, a treasure of affordable quality expertise few people in the West have discovered. This writer, having spent half his life in the US, can clearly compare the two systems.

For the most part, medical tourism to Russia is from people based in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Westerners, spurred on by decades of anti-Russian propaganda, are encased in a bubble of fear that ensures they overpay and receive poor service in their own countries, rather then take a flight to Istanbul or Dubai and then make a connecting flight to Moscow.

The US has a purely profit-driven system, with some limited Medicare and Medicaid government price controls passed on to the consumer, who has seen service value collapse while prices explode. The recent open borders influx of millions across the U.S.-Mexican border from Venezuela and other countries hasn't helped with ER wait times. The British and Canadian systems are socialistic with a long history of inadequate investment in the system and growing waiting lists for surgeries--though puberty blockers for teens and hormones for adult sex changes can be expedited, we hear.

Russia runs a dual medical system: government and private.

The government system is covered by mandatory insurance, which comes out of the tax base from the whole population. This in turn means that anyone who is a legal resident or citizen of Russia is able to receive service. Service quality varies widely from location to location, but the high-quality government facilities are usually on the level of any Western Europe or the USA and sometimes (especially in Moscow or St Petersburg) higher. There has been a drive to upgrade facilities nationwide, with massive investments in repairs and new construction, as well as--thanks in part to EU sanctions, localization for top-of-the-line medical equipment production.

During the COVID Crisis, the Russian government built 14 new infectious disease hospitals from scratch. These are not the modular containerized hospitals that the Chinese installed in Wuhan and other pandemic-struck cities of the PRC, but hardened concrete structures.

The private sector, which is what we shall be covering here, is present in every city and has everything from small clinics to full service hospitals. The government insurance, of course, does not cover these expenses. But such expenses for the most part are quite affordable and buying supplementary medical insurance for a healthy person is usually pointless, as the supplemental insurance will cost more than most procedures.

System-wide, as a comparison, the US spends 16.9% of its GDP on medicine, of questionable reliance; the UK’s crumbling systems spends 7.9%, Canada 10.7%, while the Russian system costs the economy 4.9%.

The most popular sectors of the Russian medical system are the higher end: heart surgery, neurosurgery, trauma treatment, cancer treatment and plastic surgery.

For Americans, many of whom are anxiously living paycheck to paycheck in fear that they might have to pay for a major medical procedure--especially small business owners and the self-employed who cannot afford gold-plated insurance plans and make too much to qualify for high deductible Obamacare plans--the following list could prove a godsend. So lets begin with my own personal experience.

We can start with that most hated of procedures by the guys: a colonoscopy. In the US the average cost of a colonoscopy runs to $2,750. For that price, the patient will be ushered out almost instantly after the procedure. If he has not woken up fully from the anesthetic, he we will be assisted in waking up and ushered out of an outpatient center. In Russia, the average cost is 18,000 rubles or about $210. That is an order of magnitude lower cost out of pocket. Additionally, the service will including the ability to recover in facility, with your own private room until the patient is able to walk out himself.

Lab work for that colonoscopy or for a full blood work will run on average, in a Russian private clinic, $60. In the US, this will be a pocketbook hit in the range of $450 to $500.

My wife had to have cataract surgery in Russia. She had an initial surgery in the US, received poor quality older lenses. The average cataract lens replacement will set someone back around $5000 per eye. In Russia, with top of the line lens, you will dole out 60.000 rubles or around $700 per eye. That is a seven fold difference. For the price savings of one eye, a patient can cover the ticket to Russia and a short vacation. To cover both eyes would equal a long vacation with a stay in a top-notch hotel.

Cardiac surgery: blockage removal in the US will cost in the range of $40,000. In Russia, the same procedure runs at $5000. Just the x-rays alone show the insane difference in price. Both done on the same Phillips x-ray machine, the average person in the US will be stripped of $370, while in Russia he will fork out around $20. That is correct, a difference of $350! Using the same equipment, similarly trained operators.

Photo credit: A MasterDent Clinic location

Photo from Yandex images

And dental care?

Well, along the lower scale of dental work, the price difference is not that big for people with basic dental insurance in the U.S. Cleanings that cost $150 in the U.S. will run around $60 in Russia. Fillings will run around $80 in Russia vs $200 in the US. Now, for the bigger ticket dental procedures: implants. New implants in the US can cost $4000 per tooth, while in Russia this will cost you only $200 per tooth. Now imagine if you will need four or five of them! The difference in the price of four dental implants alone will leave enough in the pocket of the average American to purchase a nice flat in a smaller Russian city like Tver, just a couple hours drive from Moscow.

So while the difference in salaries, with current exchange rate comparisons, is a somewhat flawed way of comparing incomes--PPP is a better if imperfect comparison between American and Russian living costs, in the U.S. you'll pay on average 6 times more than for a comparable major dental procedure in Russia, such as getting veneers over long-tea stained or cracked teeth. But in most cases the cost comparison is far far worse.

The “rich” American, who if he's earning a once-affluent $100,000 a year feels anything but rich, spends between 10 to 20 times more on medical procedures, as compared with the average Russian. The spillover is every other bankruptcy is caused by crushing, unpayable medical bills. Additionally, for the pleasure of servicing such gigantic costs on maxed out credit cards or supposedly 'low interest' medical loans, the consumer receives often poor patient service, with most surgeries now being pushed into the same-day turnaround of outpatient clinics.

My wife had a surgery in Russia that counted as outpatient in the US, while in Russia, she was able to stay in the hospital for 3 days, under observation, and all for one quarter of the U.S. price.

Conclusion: Russia is going to be a highly attractive medical/dental tourism and cosmetic surgery destination for years to come

We're aware that not everyone is going to take the longer flight to Eurasia, especially U.S.-based uninsured American citizens who may be in some dental pain and looking to hop on a short flight to Mexico or Central America first. Older retirees in particular may find the longer flights to Istanbul or Dubai/Abu Dhabi and then making a next-day connecting flight to major Russian cities daunting. But for many Americans who take time to compare prices and are not intimidated by State Department and Western media propaganda, Russia is going to prove a very attractive medical/dental tourism destination in the years to come.

As a quality for the price point comparison, many families from Muslim nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Syria and Iraq who see the value compared to some of the best care the United Arab Emirates can offer are already choosing Moscow's top clinics and hospitals over those in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. A few of the top plastic surgery clinics have Arabic-speaking doctors, like this one--some such as the European Medical Center have doctors, nurses and clinical staff who speak English and many clinics have Spanish or Mandarin Chinese translators on call.

Considering the tremendous cost savings, the average American, Canadian or Brit can vacation very comfortably in Moscow or see gorgeous St. Petersburg with its White Nights after their recovery. They might even have enough left over to purchase an apartment or small plot of land to start a new life in Russia. Yes, it could be that simple!

Contact us Stanislav@ExitStrategy.World if you'd like to learn more!