After going overseas to outsource everything from manufacturing to customer services, American businesses - pressed by rising health-care costs - are looking offshore for medical benefits as well.

A growing number of employers who fund their own health insurance plans have begun looking into sending their ailing employees around the world for surgeries that in the United States would cost tens of thousands of dollars more.

Carl Garrett of Leicester, N.C., will fly to a state-of-the-art hospital in New Delhi in September for surgeries to remove gallstones and to fix an overworn rotator cup. His employer, Canton, N.C.-based Blue Ridge Paper Products Inc., will pay for it all, including airfare for Garrett and his fiancee. The company also will give Garrett a share of the expected savings, up to $10,000, when he returns.