Medical Tourism: Evaluating International Markets
Medical tourism has become a booming global industry. As health care costs fly high in the United States, some patients are taking their medical business across borders and into the hospitals of Mexico, Thailand, Singapore, India, and other countries where the cost of surgery and other procedures is lower. Many of the hospitals in these countries have partnered with local resorts and five star hotels to offer patients luxurious accommodations for recuperation. Patients can combine a knee replacement or cardiac surgery with a tropical vacation, and they only have to spend a fraction of what they would pay in the U.S.
Until recently, most medical tourists sought overseas healthcare independently, opting to pay out of pocket. But now insurance companies are interested in getting in on the game. BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina has struck a deal with Thailand’s Bumrungrad Hospital, allowing patients needing surgeries not covered in the U.S. to go under the scalpel in Bangkok. United Group Programs, in Boca Raton, Florida which assists self-insured employers with administration, has begun advocating surgeries in a Thai hospital. Other insurance companies and employers may soon follow suit, and overseas hospitals are working hard to lure them. Bumrungrad has its own marketing chief, Ruben Toral, who travels to America to meet with insurers and employers interested in reducing costs of employee insurance plans.
While medical tourism has opened a whole new set of markets, it has also created a slew of issues. Countries differ widely in their clinical standards and accreditation requirements. Many of these overseas hospitals are internationally accredited, but a large number are not. Doctors and patients in Western countries tend to be wary of foreign healthcare systems, particularly those in developing nations like India, with some doctors reluctant even to send patient records abroad. The culture of medicine differs vastly from one country to the next. Thailand’s policy on stem cell research is much looser than that of the U.S., for example. Medical outsourcing also has legal implications. In the U.S., patients can win large claims for medical malpractice, but the legal systems of many countries don’t allow for this.
Despite these problems, the trend appears to be spiking upwards. Josef Woodman, author of Patients Without Borders, a book on medical outsourcing, estimates over 150,000 North Americans and Europeans are traveling to foreign countries for medical treatments each year. Asia’s medical tourism industry is expected to be worth $4 billion by 2012, according to UK consulting firm Abacus International.
This video is from Consumer Health World, May 2007. Register now for the December conference in Washington DC. Visit the online store to purchase the conference multimedia from the May 2007 conference shortly.
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