The Complete Guide to Medical Tourism

By Jay Siva

The Authoritative Guidebook for The Medical Tourist Who wants to Beat the High Cost of Private Healthcare, Jump the long Queue for life-saving surgery and Get High-Quality, Low-cost Healthcare at Hospitals that meet American Standards.

How to Successfully Plan your Medical Trip Abroad. Discount Airfare, American-Trained Doctors and Internationally- Accredited Hospitals have made expensive Medical Treatment Affordable for All! Find out how You can benefit from this trend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781620950432

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Part-I: Introduction

1. Medical Tourism – An Overview

Medical tourism is ideally a combination of medical treatments and vacation in a foreign country. Often many travel from developed countries like United Kingdom and Canada to avail medical treatments and surgeries in less developed countries. While at the foreign location, these tourists pack in lot of sightseeing and vacationing to make full use of their tour. This practice is however still in its initial stages in the United States.

It is obvious that the costs of vacation and medical treatments at these foreign countries are substantially lower than the medical costs alone at their home country. There are many other favorable factors too for this ongoing boom in medical tourism. Developed and industrialized nations have very high costs of healthcare, surgeries, and dental care too.

The Internet has been able to shorten distances and you can now get to know of all the medical facilities available at any corner of the world for any particular ailment. Developing nations are also displaying high standards of healthcare. The ever-growing technology is making many advances in every field. People and health care institutions at these developing nations are availing such advances to develop their health giving facilities.

International travel is more affordable and easily available now than before. The currency exchange rates across the globe are also very fast and available at favorable rates. Besides, the safety measures and care of the healthcare personnel is the major factor attracting the medical tourists.

Where to Go

The most favored and popular destinations of medical tourists are India, South America, and East Indies. The quality of medical treatments and recuperation facilities at these three places are among the best in the world. The irony is that the costs of such treatment are very reasonable too. You can easily accommodate your treatment and enjoy a few days’ stay at the most beautiful locales of such foreign countries, all within just one fifth or one-fourth of the medical costs alone at your home country.

Medical tourism is becoming a booming business. It is available as a total package. A couple can travel to a popular southern state of India for an LASHIK surgery and enjoy the natural surroundings of the place. The total cost would be $25,000 inclusive of airfare, personal guide, and surgery for the two of you, and boarding and lodging.

In Britain and Canada, the major drawback in availing medical facilities is the long waiting time. Statistics indicate that the average waiting time between referral and treatment is around seventeen to eighteen weeks. It could also extend to more than a year or two at the hospitals for non-emergency cases.

In the United States, medical costs are too high. More than 43.3 million Americans do not have any medical insurance. The difference in costs between treatments at U.S and other medical tourist destinations runs into thousands of dollars. No doubt people would prefer being a medical tourist and avail the excellent facilities at such medical tourist destinations with a nice vacation too.

Pioneers of Medical Tourism

Medical tourism to Europe has been a common tradition since a very long time. Switzerland and Germany have been the pioneers in this field. The Swiss clinics have been bringing in huge amounts of money through currency exchange of medical tourists. Travel agents from these places organize package tours for people from Middle East and Eastern Europe too.

Now, Thailand is the leading country in medical tourism. Thailand recouped from its economy collapse of 1997 mainly through the foreign currency exchanges of medical tourists. Low medical costs with the lure of the world famous beaches and in some cases, hospitals were ideally located on such beaches too. Thai dining, cuisine, and tempting shopping sprees were additional bargains.

Is Everything So Easy and Simple?

Considering all the favorable factors for medical tourism, you need to judge if everything is really so simple, easy, and inexpensive. Most popular destinations of medical tourists have reputed doctors, often trained in Western countries. Some of them have been serving at many leading hospitals of the Western nations too. Nevertheless, the other healthcare staff and nurses may not