What is Medical Tourism?

Medical Tourism (also referred to as Health Tourism, Medical Travel and International Healthcare) is a term describing patients receiving medical care across their national borders. Although it may seem that this is a fairly new industry, history shows us that the phenomenon of medical travel exists for centuries, all the way back to ancient times. Today, the modern medical tourism industry offers a good, alternative solution to a number of problems patients might have with receiving local healthcare.

These healthcare problems can include:

• Medical Costs – As local healthcare costs are constantly rising, lower prices are becoming the main advantage of medical travel. In addition, many patients do not have sufficient medical insurance bringing costs of necessary medical treatments to unaffordable prices.
• Waiting Lists – Availability can sometimes pose a medical problem, as patients are put on waiting lists and forced to wait for surgery for weeks or months, sometimes also years. Medical tourism offers short waiting lists, if any at all, giving patients the option of having surgery abroad within a very short period of time.
• Higher Quality of Healthcare – There are cases that medical travel will assist patients in receiving a better quality of medical treatments or diagnostic services abroad then they could in their own home country.

When we combine these advantages with benefits such as a possible vacation included before or after undergoing treatment, Medical Tourism is a great opportunity for anyone seeking medical care.

Thanks to rapid improvements in global transportation means in the past few decades, patients have been able to travel in a much easier way than before. Add this to the massive development of the internet, bringing our world closer together with endless amounts of free information, and medical tourism has been made simple for patients who beforehand were unable to pursue medical treatments abroad, after not being able to receive proper medical care in their own country.

Different aspects of globalization have led to the rise in the quality of medical care around the world, as countless countries offer healthcare that is up to par with American medicine standards. This means that Medical travelers can receive every medical treatment abroad they choose to from the long list of medical services available such as the popular plastic surgery procedures and dental surgery, but not only, as heart surgery, total joint replacements (knee/hip) and cancer treatments are also familiar fields in the growing medical tourism industry.