Top Procedures and Models

What are the top medical tourism destinations？ There are some studies done, although since there are no universal definition of medical tourism. Some of the figures might not be hundred percent accurate, but we find this list of countries are probably the top medical tourism destinations. India,Brazil,Malaysia,Thailand,Turkey, Mexico,Costa Rica, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and the United State.

Many of these countries have more than one hospitals， which attract large numbers of international patients. We find for example, Singapore has more than ten hospitals attracting significant number of international patients. Thailand has many hospitals attracting international patients. Turkey as well and the United States.

There are three types, three major models of medical tourism been adopted by different countries. They are of course not mutually exclusive, and I have label them as the”Thailand Mode” Model 1, the “India Model” Model 2 and the “American model” Model 3. The “Thailand Mode” involves foreigners going there for relatively minor elective procedures. Often, sometimes involving more complicated ones. But most of the patients will go there for relatively minor procedures and then go for leisure activities afterwards. The India model involves foreigners going there for more serious treatment mainly for the lower costs. That can be compare with the cost having the treatment in their own countries.

The American model involves foreigners going there for the reputation, for the highly specialized procedures, even though the costs are very high and much higher than comparable procedures in their own country.

Now I’m going to talk about some general requirement for different medical tourism models. If we are talking about success factors, then regardless of what models you adopt, you need to have universal health care access for the local residents. And you need to have some spare capacity, otherwise we’ll find the local people would complain or politicians would complain. Another very important requirement would be good general tourism infrastructures, good airport,good public transport, good tourism facilities. A third factor would be that you have facilities with International Accreditation in order to gain trust of foreign patients. And finally you need to have a team of culturally sensitive staff in these facilities.

For the different types of models, then there are special requirements. For Model 1 which I label the Thailand model, you need to have very good tourism infrastructure and good tourist attractions. You also need to have good hospitality service in the hospital. We find sometimes they have Visa department in the hospital to help patients and families to obtain visas or extension of their stay. They have team of translators in hospital. They even have counters at the airport to receive patients. You of course also need facilities with international accreditation. And also your service has to be competitive in terms of costs.

For Model 2, the “Indian model”. the most important factor would be that your facilities or have international accreditation. And also very important would be the cost. The cost of the procedures needs to be significantly lower than those in more developed economies.

For Model 3,the “American model”. You need to have excellent reputation for you facilities. The facilities need to have star professors, star doctors to be able to attract patients to travel all the way to your countries, and pay premium fee for their services. The institutions need to have a reputable research track record. They need to be internationally recognized as center of excellence for the type of care. They also need to have very rigorous systems for training and development of not just for doctors, but all the health care professions working in the facilities.