Rising popularity of medical tourism reveals deterioration of U.S. healthcare system

Rising popularity of medical tourism reveals deterioration of U.S. healthcare system: "Defenders of organized medicine are fond of saying that the United States has the best healthcare in the world, but I challenge that. I don't think we have the best healthcare in the world, I think we have the most expensive healthcare in the world. In fact, in terms of results for dollars spent, I think the United States ranks very near the bottom of the list of all industrialized nations. We get less actual health than anyone else for each dollar that we spend.

This realization is now hitting the general public as well, and they are increasingly leaving this country to find offshore locations and assess quality medical care and surgical procedures elsewhere. This phenomenon is called 'medical tourism.'

In medical tourism, patients who might normally undergo some sort of medical procedure in the United States, usually a costly surgical procedure, instead fly to the Philippines, Thailand or other countries to have the procedures done there.

As a result, they save an enormous amount of money. Offshore medical procedures can be performed for as little as one-tenth the cost of what would normally be charged here in the United States. And yet the facilities offshore are state of the art. These are modern hospitals that often are newer and have much better technology and equipment than hospitals in the United States. They are typically staffed by Western doctors and surgeons trained in Western medicine, and they provide equal or greater quality surgical care than U.S. hospitals. These surgical procedures are performed with the same technology and expertise, yet cost a fraction of the price.

For example, a knee replacement surgery in a high-tech hospital in the Philippines performed by Western trained surgeons might only cost you $6,000. Here in the United States you're probably looking at $50,000. Heart bypass surgery in Asia costs around $10,000. In the US, it's $60,000 to $80,000. Gast"

Medical Tourism in India value from foreign visitors

Initiatives have been launched in the sphere of medical tourism and cruise tourism in partnership with the private sector to enable India to emerge as a major global hub. Expert committees have been set up to draw plans and criteria for accreditation for hospitals and related agencies. Annual foreign exchange of over Rs 5,000 crore and a large number of job generation activities are expected through medical tourism.

Are Indian Hospitals ready for medical tourism?

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Airport pick-up and drop, visa assistance, arranging foreign exchange, hotel accommodation, sight-seeing and shopping, interpreter services, preparing multi-country cuisines — these are not the job profile of a hospitality sector professional, but one who works for a super-speciality hospital attending to foreign patients — read medical tourists.

If medical tourism holds promise, Indian hospitals have realised the big bucks would come from the Western countries. Hence, there’s a rush among hospitals to make themselves attractive to medical tourists from Europe and the US. Eager to cash in on the trend, posh private hospitals are wooing foreign patients offering services that are best associated with five-star hotels, such as airport pick-ups, plush Internet-equipped private rooms, and package deals that combine convalescence with luxuries of tourist resorts.

Some hospitals are packing in extra perceived value propositions by augmenting treatment regimens to include yoga and other forms of traditional Indian healing that have always held fascination for the people in the West. “Much of this is being driven to attract foreign patients from the developed economies, which is a trickle at the moment,” says a senior hospital administrator. Some like Delhi-based Escorts Heart Institute are looking at setting up fully-furnished service apartments to be offered as part of the package to foreign patients.

Currently, most of the foreigners coming into India for medical procedures are mainly from developing countries in Asia, Africa or the Middle East, which lack top-quality hospitals and health professionals. Patients from the US and Europe still are relatively few.
For instance, at the Escorts Heart Institute, almost 60% foreign patients are from the Saarc region, with the remaining from UK, USA, Canada, Europe, Africa, which gets around 18 to 20 foreign patients every day, claims Navneet Malhotra, GM (hospitality), Foreign Patients Facilitation Cell, Escorts Heart Institute.

This is not only because of the distance they would have to travel but also, hospital executives acknowledge, because India continues to suffer from an image of poverty and poor hygiene that discourages many patients. “Initial efforts and representations from the Indian hospitals to the healthcare bodies in the UK and US to ease pressure and waiting queues in their country by diverting patients to India hasn’t yielded encouraging results. That has sent most industry players to put best possible infrastructure and services as a bait,” says a senior executive with a Chennai-based private hospital chain.

This is changing. Most big private hospital chains believe, they can rake in greenbacks if they do it right. So there’s greater emphasis on recruiting staffers and designers from the hospitality industry. Personalised nursing care, and the opportunity to learn about other holistic healing methods, from yoga, to ayurveda, and more could spur foreigners from the West. And hospitals are facilitating an exploration of these methods for any interested foreign patient.

Many hospital-centric hotel projects are coming up in the country. “Hospitals can offer a major catchment market for hotels with most patients coming from Middle East and South Asian countries prefer to travel with their families,” says Manav Thadani, MD, HVS International, an hospitality industry tracker.

Even as centres like Escorts have tie-ups with guest-houses and hotels for putting up accompanying family members, they have put in place a dedicated in-house team to take care of all travel and stay related issues of each foreign guest.

Aspirations have further accentuated various studies painting a rosy picture of India’s potential in healthcare sector, like it is already doing in other service industries. A recent study by the McKinsey consulting firm estimated that India’s medical tourism industry could yield as much as $2.2bn in annual revenue by 2012. Taken as a whole, India’s healthcare system is hardly a model, with barely four doctors for every 10,000 people, compared with 27 in the US, according to the World Bank. Healthcare accounts for just 5.1% of India’s GDP, against 14% in the US.

However, these private “centres of excellence” find themselves better placed to go for lucrative patients segment from the West. Their quality of care is as good or better than that of big-city hospitals in the US or Europe.

Professionalism and expertise of Indian doctors is rated high and complicated non-invasive procedures such as robotic surgeries are no longer alien to Indians.

Govt sets up task force on medical tourism

The government has set up a task force on medical tourism to suggest measures to promote India as a healthcare destination, reports Our Delhi Bureau. It is also working on a legislation for mandatory registration of all clinical establishments to ensure uniformity in services, health minister Anbumani Ramadoss has said. The task force under the chairmanship of DG of Health Services will assess the opportunities.

In a bid to standardise the healthcare services, a pre-requisite to attract foreign patients, the government is also working on a Clinical Establishment Act, which will make registration of all hospitals and diagnostic facilities compulsory. To rationalise the flow of tourist traffic, the Ministry of Home Affairs is also introducing a new category of visa called ‘medical visa,’ which can be given for specific purpose of medical treatment, he said.

India was now getting patients even from the developed world due to high cost of treatment there, he said.

While Cuba has promoted medical tourism through its marketing network, Thailand has focused on superior consumer experiences and brand equity. South Africa specialises in medical safaris, the minister said, adding that there was a need to evolve imaginative packages, given the country's rich cultural heritage and places of scenic beauty and architectural interests.