About Medical Tourism

The combination of medicine and tourism is a relatively new type of tourism that records high growth rates, and today the market value of medical tourism is more than 60 billion dollars. The growth trend will continue in the future, and on its decrease can only affect the lack of capacity, and in no way decrease in demand.

Medical tourism is a comprehensive term used for a whole range of activities from wellness and spa treatments to all types of cosmetic and most complicated operations including, for example, heart transplantation. Medical outsourcing, health tourism, medical travel or health travel are all terms used to describe this phenomenon. Depending upon the need, the medical trips are to surgery centers overseas for medical or plastic surgery, or to overseas hospitals and clinics for advanced medical diagnostics, recuperation care or dental care.

Unyielding growth of demand on world market for the medical tourism generates the crisis in healthcare systems in the developed countries, high prices of medical services, long waiting lists and global trends of the population aging. A key factor in choosing a destination, except the cost, is the standard of medical services, high expertise and equipment of hospitals that deal with these types of services and the attractiveness of the location in the tourist sense.

Fraction of cost does not always mean a compromise in quality! Many of the most advanced medical facilities in the world exist outside the United States, with specific programs carefully designed to attract international travelers. This year alone, upwards of 500,000 Americans expected to travel overseas to get their bodies fixed, at prices 30 to 80 percent less than at home. Moreover, since recession and economic depletion is affecting the major developed countries that offers world top-notch healthcare, Americans are expected to help turn global medical tourism into a $40 billion-a-year industry by 2010, according to David Hancock, author of The Complete Medical Tourist. These are astonishing numbers but and will likely to happen in the near future because of the incredible potential the industry has up to today.

Another player that supports the boom of medical tourism is medical tourism agencies. Not only do these companies act as mediators between patients and foreign surgeons, but also they also search hospitals, schedule surgeries, buy airline tickets, reserve hotel rooms, and, yes, even plan sightseeing tours for the patients’ private recuperation. Most important, they aim to reassure customers that cheap doe’s not equal poor quality. Therefore, for a little added fee you can rest assures that your medical vacation will be a success. The future of medical tourism looks very bright with some countries registering about 30% annual growth in tourism related to healthcare. Medical tourism is surely a part of the next level of globalization.

The growth of medical tourism is driven by cost, consumerism, quality and foreign economic development. Outbound medical tourism is expected to increase as health care costs in US continue to rise. In addition, consumerism and higher out-of-pocket expenses are prompting individuals to seek lower-cost alternatives to US based treatments. Outbound medical tourism is likely to experience explosive growth over the next three to five years, followed by continued slower growth due to capacity constraints. The availability of lower-cost, offshore treatment options could save US patients billions of dollars and reduce spending within the US health care system.