Medical tourism to Eastern Europe is very popular because of the huge savings that people experience when they use the very inexpensive but high quality medical procedures that are available in Eastern Europe. If you would like, or need, any high cost medical procedure, or if your own medical services have a long backlog of people on a waiting list, medical tourism may be just for you.

Medical procedures that are very popular subjects for medical tourism are liposuction, plastic surgery, breast enlargement, dental surgery, laser eye correction surgery and asthma cures.

The first thing about medical tourism that catches attention is the relative cost of care. Here are some comparative costs:

Liposuction of fat from the inner thighs cost about $3,300 in Poland as compared to about $12,300 in Germany. Breast enlargement starts at around $3,200 in Poland as compared to between $6,150 and $9,800 in Germany. A nose job costs $2,000 to $2,500 in Poland, $4,900 to $7,400 in Germany.

And dental work is very inexpensive also. For example, a crown, which would cost between $1000 and $1500 in Western Europe, runs only about $300 in Eastern Europe, at an up-market dental office, fashioned by a master ceramicist. Most work is guaranteed for 3 to 5 years.

Because of these low costs, medical tourism provides an alternative source of medical treatment for people who are not able to get timely medical treatment due to long waiting lists. And it allows people to undergo elective medical procedures that they otherwise could not afford.

The second question that comes up is, "What about the quality of care?" And the answer to that is that it is very high quality.

Not only are the medical practitioners who serve the medical tourism travelers well trained in their own countries, many of them have been trained in medical and dental schools in the United States and Western Europe. Beyond that, companies that specialize in arranging medical tourism screen the practitioners and refer people only to the best.

As it turns out, the major source of new clients for the medical tourism agencies is referrals from satisfied people who have use the services of these medical practitioners in Eastern Europe. Such referrals come from people who are more than satisfied and who are often very excited about sharing their medical tourism experiences with others.

Because most of the procedures require treatment over time, the medical tourism agencies make arrangements for stays in nice, but low cost apartments or hotels, and make arrangements for sightseeing and other activities. So patients are kept active in the time that they wait between steps in a procedure.

For example, many people choose to go to one of the underground salt chambers for asthma treatment. Because the treatment is rendered over time, the people managing the asthma treatment chambers have complete social and tour programs laid out for their patients.

Likewise, there are many weight loss clinics where people undergo a two week physical and psychological weight loss course. The days of the course attendees are filled with activities and tours to attractions. Post treatment surveys show that people rave as much or more about the activities and tours as they do the treatment.

It is neither the purpose of this article nor its it possible to tell you about all the possibilities available to you for medical tourism. But we hope that we have highlighted enough for you to do further research to find a solution to a problem that you or one of your loved ones can have cured inexpensively, in short order and under pleasant conditions.

2005 Gary Granai. You are free to use material from this article in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site links, do not edit the article in any way, give proper author credit by including the information about the author as shown in this page and follow all of the Go Articles Guidelines For Publishers.

Attribution should read, Gary Granai is the Director of The Poland Chamber, Inc, that maintains a web site with information about Poland And Eastern Europe at Master Page