NHS treatment abroad

The EU is planning to introduce new rules which will allow dissatisfied British medical and dental patients to receive treatment in a member state of their choice – and reclaim all or part of the cost from the NHS. This situation makes that, according to recent figures from a private medical insurer, more than half of NHS patients would travel overseas for healthcare if they could reclaim their bills. Besides that, dental treatment tends to be far cheaper in other EU countries. By going abroad for dental treatment patients will save thousands of pounds – even after travel and accommodation costs. Popular destinations in this are Hungary and Slovakia as well as Poland.

Going to Slovakia for new a new set of implants, it is like going to Luxembourg for fuel if you live in Belgium. Or going to Andorra for cigarettes and booze if you live in France. The only difference in this case is that having a new set of implants or a six-months check up is actually the real purpose of visit. It is not like buying boxes of cigarettes while driving on a holiday to Spain. Retired health-food shop owner Linda Williamson, 54, recommends ‘tooth tourism’ also for the experience: she stopped off for treatment while driving through Slovakia and Hungary. ‘It felt like a holiday,’ she said. And many more British feel the same way about it. These overseas dentists offer top quality treatment at a lower price. So we could say that price and the offered quality are the main motifs for the British to engage in “tooth-tourism”. Although they enjoy their stay in, for example, Slovakia.

The funny thing in this case is that the current situation of tooth-tourism is the result of a new coming regulation by the EU, instead of a result of all the deregulations which have happened before or are still happening. I think that in the coming years a fierce competition will commence, not only based on price, but also on the quality and the characteristics of the dental product. This is already happening but even more and also more brutal.

To conclude, due to the introduction of new EU rules a new unforeseen dental tourism market has emerged. The world becomes smaller and smaller, so going to Slovakia for a dental implants is becoming a trend among the British.