Dental work too expensive? Go overseas

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

You've heard of the "accidental tourist?" How about the dental tourist?

Jim Paggi was such a traveler.

The 56-year-old Benicia man went more than 6,000 miles to Hungary in March to get his teeth fixed for less than a third of the $50,000 or more it would have cost in this country.

"Everybody says, 'You're going where for what? What kind of vacation is that?' " Paggi said a few days after returning from two weeks in the central European nation. "I'm saying if you had my smile, you would do it, too."

Paggi is one of a growing number of Americans traveling to far-flung locales to undergo medical and dental procedures at affordable rates.

While statistics on medical tourism aren't available, the trend by all accounts is gaining steam. A growing number of countries, including India, Thailand and Singapore, are marketing medical and dental services to foreigners, boasting of "first world medicine" at cut-rate prices.

Markets at work.