Consider this typical scenario: a patient is advised to lose weight for medical reasons, and the best option seems to be weight loss surgery. Diets and exercise do not seem to work much and the surgery offers hope to the patient who is frustrated and tired of having to deal with the constant health problems that overweight people contend with. But the problem is that weight loss surgery is quite expensive in the United States. The question is whether the expensive surgery is worth it because the condition is not really fatal. Is there an alternative?
Fortunately, the answer is in the affirmative. Medical tourism is the answer to problems like this where medical treatment is delayed or inaccessible due to the prohibitive costs of health care in the United States and Europe. If the patient travels to one of the world class hospitals in countries like Singapore, Thailand, India or Malaysia, the surgery can be done at a fraction of the cost of getting it done in their home country. Including airfare, accommodation for the patient and a companion, it is still possible to save at least close to $10,000 by choosing to undergo the surgery at a medical tourism destination. The number of medical tourists is growing exponentially year by year, and most people who seek medical care abroad do so for financial reasons. A recent survey conducted by an online directory for medical tourism found that more than 60% of Americans are willing to fly abroad for medical treatment. As budgets get tighter and health care costs increase, they are willing to forego the initial reluctance to consider surgery or other medical treatments in countries outside of their own. Elective cosmetic procedures like face lift, blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, cosmetic dentistry and others find a lot of takers in the medical tourism sector. But it is not just elective procedures that are attracting patients, but critical and advanced procedures in cardiology, oncology, neurology etc., that are also routinely done in world class hospitals in medical tourism destinations such as India, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. The trend in medical tourism is such that medical tourists from the United States often go abroad for medical treatment due to the affordability factor, and those in UK and Europe go abroad because of long waiting periods and delays in medical procedures in their own country. Heart surgery costs about $50,000 in the US and under $20,000 in other countries. Therefore it makes sense for a patient to travel abroad for expensive medical procedures. Inexpensive procedures such as colonoscopy for example may best be performed in one’s own country because the final cost may not be worth it when you consider the airfare and accommodation expenses that one would have to incur in addition to the treatment cost. The most popular surgeries are dental and lasik eye surgery for which medical tourist travel abroad in great numbers every year. Medical tourism is here to stay and the industry is estimated to generate $4.4 billion by 2012 in Asia alone. This is a huge opportunity that most governments are capitalizing on by facilitating rapid development of state of the art healthcare facilities.
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