Mexico

View of Cerro de la Silla, Monterrey

Since research began on the first edition of Patients Beyond Borders, Mexico has made great strides in healthcare. No longer known just for border-town dentistry and cosmetic surgery, Mexico has come into its own as a global healthcare hub, offering patients an array of specialties and procedures that now begin to rival its competitor nations in Asia.

With new facilities and services has come increased international recognition. In 2006 Mexico had no JCI-accredited facilities; in 2010 it had nine.

Some medical institutions in Mexico have cross-border ties and operate as part of larger, international conglomerates. For example, Christus Muguerza Alta Especialidad, which attained JCI accreditation in 2007, is now part of Christus Health in the US, a group serving eight US states, mostly along the US-Mexican border. The merger has made Christus Muguerza the largest healthcare provider in Mexico.

Mexico Healthcare and Medical Tourism

Some other hospitals in Mexico enjoy affiliation with major educational institutions. Hospital San Jose Tec de Monterrey, for example, is sponsored by the internationally recognized Tecnologico de Monterrey, a premiere educational institution that boasts more than 18,000 full-time students and operates 32 campuses across Mexico. Through its Medical School, Center for Biotechnology, and Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer, Tecnológico de Monterrey educates health professionals, while developing new models for clinical care and research.

Productive affiliations cross international borders as well. For instance, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA, is affiliated with Universidad Panamericana (UP) in Mexico City. The institutions exchange medical students and offer training in Spanish and English, along with opportunities for clinical experience and excursions to historical sites.

Not all of Mexico’s medical offerings are located in major medical centers. Mexico-bound health travelers often seek out smaller clinics run by two or three physicians, some of them second- and even third-generation family enterprises.

Unassuming yet clean and efficient, these clinics are often as not headed by either expatriate US physicians or practitioners trained in the US or Europe. Such clinics reliably treat tens of thousands of medical travelers each year, with many of their patients returning annually for checkups, dental cleanings, physicals, and a host of other treatments that can be had far less expensively than in the US, Europe, and even many Asian countries.

Additional Resources

Read the recently released Patients Beyond Borders: Monterrey, Mexico Edition to learn more about healthcare options in Mexico.

Some Cautions

Although quality clinics are located in nearly every major city and resort in Mexico, finding a good one can be fraught with frustration. Many websites remain in Spanish, and English-speaking physicians are not always available, nor are translation services. In smaller Mexican clinics, the health traveler is likely to encounter fewer English speakers than in Malaysia or Thailand, tens of thousands of miles away. So, unless you’re fluent in Spanish, you may want to enlist the assistance of a good health travel agency when arranging care in Mexico. Be forewarned that many of the health travel agents serving Mexico are partnered with a single clinic or hospital.

Language difficulties aside, geographical convenience is the big motivation for many Mexico-bound health travelers who reside in the US. More than 70 percent of Mexico’s US patients travel from the border states of California, Texas, or Arizona. Nearby patients from San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, and Houston make the two- to six-hour drive across the border to their clinic of choice, stay a night or two in a hotel, and then drive back. As one veteran cross-border patient comments, “A three-hour drive across the border saves me $700 in physicals and dental work every year. That’s a no-brainer.”