Bumrungrad International hospital, Thailand’s premier private medical center, and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina and BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina have formed an alliance to promote ‘medical tourism’ to its 1.3 million members.

Through a subsidiary, Companion Global Healthcare, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina will assist members interested in overseas medical treatment by providing information and access to Bumrungrad’s website and a US based contact center managed by World Access Inc., a leading travel insurance and international healthcare assistance company.

This alliance is a first between a major US healthcare insurer and Thai hospital and is expected to pave the way for more medical travel to Thailand. Increasingly, Americans are looking overseas for lower cost medical treatment, and this trend has been widely featured in news media and medical journals, like the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

David Boucher, Assistant V.P. of Healthcare Services for BlueCross South Carolina and a former hospital administrator, who spearheaded the project for BlueCross, visited Bumrungrad in July of last year after seeing the hospital featured on CBS 60 Minutes and reading about it in Time Magazine. After a four day inspection, he came away convinced that Bumrungrad was, as he put it, “a first rate medical center and a facility our organization could endorse to its members.”

Medical tourism continues to be a shining star for the Thai tourism industry, attracting ‘high-value’ tourists to the Kingdom that stay longer and spend more than other tourist categories. Ruben Toral, Bumrungrad’s Group Marketing Director, believes that medical tourism will eventually lead to medical outsourcing. “It’s inevitable,” he says. “Corporations and insurers alike are looking for new solutions to drive down the cost of healthcare, and we are part of the solution.”

About Bumrungrad International
Bumrungrad International is Southeast Asia’s premier private hospital and a regional referral center for advanced care, offering 554 beds, 30 specialty centers, 900 medical specialists and over 800 nurses. It is Thailand’s first JCI accredited hospital and serves more than one million patients yearly from 190 different countries.

About BlueCross Blue Shield of South Carolina
BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina and BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina are headquartered in Columbia, S.C. BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina is a wholly owned subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, and both are independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans.

About World Access Inc.
Based in Richmond, Virginia, World Access is a leading provider of insurance and assistance services, covering more than 155 million people worldwide. As a member of the Mondial Assistance Group, World Access is part of the world's largest travel insurance and assistance company. World Access provides services to customers 24 hours a day, wherever they travel, all over the world.

Source: Bumrungrad International release dated April 2007

Contact information:
Public Relations Department
Bumrungrad International
Tel: +66 (0) 2667 2212
E-mail: pr@bumrungrad.com
Web site: www.bumrungrad.com