Vacation, Adventure And Surgery?

Elective Surgeries By World-Class Doctors At Third-World Prices

(CBS)  One patient is Byron Bonnewell, who lives 12,000 miles away in Shreveport, La., where he owns and runs a campground for RVs. A year-and-a-half ago, he had a heart attack, and his doctor told him he really needed bypass surgery.

"They told me I was gonna die," says Bonnewell, who didn't have insurance.

He estimates he would have had to pay over $100,000 out of his own pocket for the operation he needed, a complicated quintuple bypass. And he says he actually decided not to do it: "I guess I figured I'd rather die with a little bit of money in my pocket than live poor."

But Bonnewell says his health was deteriorating quickly, when he read about Bumrungrad Hospital: "I was in my doctor's office one day having some tests done, and there was a copy of Business Week magazine there. And there was an article in Business Week magazine about Bumrungrad Hospital. And I came home and went on the Internet and made an appointment, and away I went to Thailand."

He made that appointment after he learned that the bypass would cost him about $12,000. He chose his cardiologist, Dr. Chad Wanishawad, after reading on the hospital’s Web site that he used to practice at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

"Every doctor that I saw there has practiced in the United States," says Bonnewell.

But three days after walking into the hospital, he was on the operating table. Two weeks later, he was home.

How does he feel? "Wonderful. I wish I’d found them sooner," says Bonnewell. "Because I went through a year – I was in bad shape. I couldn’t walk across the room."

How was the nursing? How was the treatment?

"I found it so strange in Thailand, because they were all registered nurses. Being in a hospital in the United States, we see all kinds of orderlies, all kinds of aides, maybe one RN on duty on the whole floor of the hospital," says Bonnewell. "In Thailand, I bet I had eight RNs just on my section of the floor alone. First-class care."

That’s what the hospital prides itself on: its first-class medical care, which it can offer so cheaply because everything is cheaper here, particularly labor and malpractice insurance. You can get just about any kind of treatment, from chemotherapy to plastic surgery.