Medical and Dental Tourism in Costa Rica

While on a trip to Costa Rica, Taras Kuzin, the founder of MedVacation, lost a tooth as a result of a surfing accident. His Costa Rican friends strongly encouraged him to visit a dentist in their home country. A bit skeptical about the quality of dental work in Costa Rica, and being personally motivated by having good dental insurance in the United States, Taras did not heed friends’ advice and chose to seek dental treatments in the U.S.

Upon his return to the United States, Taras researched oral and maxillofacial surgeons and subsequently selected one of the best dental surgeons offering the best value in Denver. He underwent a dental implant procedure. Although he did his research and paid a going price for this surgical procedure, Taras found he paid at least 30% more than what he could have paid in Costa Rica for a similar procedure. Even though his dental implant was performed by a dental practice in the United States, he did travel to Costa Rica for his crown, which cost 1/3 of what he would have paid in the States.

While going through this experience and having an entrepreneurial mind, Taras began to think about "medical industry arbitrage," and decided to start a medical tourism company. While waiting for his dental implant to grow in and with a front tooth missing, Taras certainly had many opportunities to tell his accident story and the idea for a medical tourism company to friends and acquaintances. Surprisingly, many of his friends shared their stories about how they used medical facilities in other countries to become pregnant, or how they considered sending their loved ones to receive certain high quality medical treatments because of cost considerations. All these talks cemented his plans to move forward with the medical tourism business.