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As author of the recently-published consumer guidebook, “Patients
Beyond Borders,” I agree the age of the contemporary international medical traveler has arrived. Yet, in attending the World Health Care Congress in DC, it remains clear that, despite 20+% growth, medical tourism will remain consumer-driven & grassroots until infrastructure builds, including health insurance coverage for medical tourists, increased cross-border medical transparency and the ever-present malpractice/liability concerns.

Yet, for the more than 200,000 Americans, Britons and Canadians who will travel abroad for treatment this year, the 30-80% savings are real enough, and the overwhelming majority will return home successfully treated–and evangelistic about the quality of care received.

Un- and under-insured baby boomers aging into expensive, financially challenging medical procedures are the driving force of medical tourism. So long as vast, ungainly cost-performance disparity remains, international medical travel will continue to grow and prosper.

US patients are attracted to South and Southeast Asian countries and even to Mexico (since it’s so near) mainly because they offer good quality, low-cost and no-wait medical services. Many private hospitals in these countries maintain best practice standards of care, are JCI/JCAHO/ISO accredited, offer world-class treatment and employ medical professionals who are educated in accredited universities in the US, UK, Australia, etc., so there is no doubt about their credibility, reliability and quality. And, after one has recovered, these countries offer a variety of tourist destinations, where one can rejuvenate.

To help the global medical consumers connect with hospitals overseas, a few medical tourism companies or medical tourism operators have sprung up in the recent past. I personally used the services of a US based medical tourism facilitator called Healthbase (http://www.healthbase.com) to help me find a hospital in Thailand for cosmetic surgery. Their service was excellent. However, I’d say that one must do their homework before boarding that money-saving flight to India or Singapore or Thailand or anywhere.

Medical tourism is another sign of the increasing globalization of health care. The flatter the world gets, the more our ethnically diverse population becomes affluent and the more health care costs rise domestically, the more attractive these services become. Insurers may not be there yet, but the numbers are begin to attract attention. There is also the competitive aspect to medical tourism. If these foreign entities become a real option, that is, if people can overcome the strong local bias for care in their back yard, will this once again raise the bar for pricing and services from local hospitals? Not yet, I suspect, but soon.

Another area where the foreign and local experience differs is around the overall value proposition of the surgical package which is typically fixed price, offers longer stay in hospital and rehabilitation centres and where extras are required, they are substantially cheaper. For this reason may patient elect to have check ups since they are so cheap.

Medical tourism,does offer cost saving benefits,but what when there is a complication of a procedure?If patient is on Coma?or requires extensive follow up after the procedure,who will be providing these.
These are some issues which need to be assessed before boarding the flight for a major surgical procedure..

A common concern among medical tourism patients is of post care medical treatment. This is spawning a cottage industry of medical companies. Good example is Fill Centers USA a company that has medical offices in about 30 states in the USA and does all the follow up work related to Lap Band Surgery patients from Mexico & Costa Rica.

Another point to note about medical tourism is that is that its not only the un-insured or who cannot pay that travel abroad for surgeries. There are some who inspite of having all the money do it due to the non-availability of the medical treatment in the USA. For example Medical Tourism Corporation (http://www.medicaltourismco.com) facilitates cervical disc replacement in India. This procedure was approved by the FDA in July 2007. But in India its been going on for many years now.

Mecical tourism addresses more than one need: cost savings, yes definitely, but also timely care, as pointed out in this article. The quality of your life is just not the same if you have to wait for a year or two to get a surgery done.

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