Healthcare industry has advanced a lot today. Transplantations and surgeries are performed at international standards at affordable prices. But there are countries around the world, where certain specialties like cardiac surgeries, treatments for strokes, oncology, fertility treatments, etc. are unavailable. Similarly, there are countries like US, where treatments are available at excellent standards, but, they are quite costlier for people to afford.
When people requiring healthcare services from such countries travel overseas, we call it ‘Medical Tourism’ and it involves certain processes. Medical tourism industry is now becoming much popular across the world and is emerging as one of the significant industries.
Let’s throw light on Medical Tourism industry to know more about it on why this industry is becoming popular or why people prefer taking their treatments overseas.
Top reasons why people choose traveling overseas for treatment
Developing nations are concentrating on the medical tourism industry, as it could bring about lot of revenues to them in the future. Among the benefits offered by medical tourism industry, let’s focus on the few top reasons here.
Cost-Effective Solution
Cost is one of the major reasons why people prefer traveling overseas as affordability is the main problem with regards to healthcare. Though healthcare industry has grown to the extent of laser treatments and Robotic Assisted Solutions, the treatment is not affordable to many around the world. But, medical tourism has shown a spectacular improvement in this aspect.
Nearly 80% of the healthcare cost is reduced when people travel to countries like India, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Turkey, and Dubai for treatments. Platforms like Medditour help in connecting the patients to international hospitals and facilitators / agents to make their medical tourism happen smoothly and safely.
It is mentioned in an article in Times of India that in the Ayush Summit, India’s visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked passionately about India becoming a medical tourism hub for the world, serving and saving millions of lives each year, which seems to be good sign for the emerging trends in the global medical tourism industry.
Reduced / No Waiting Period
Today, developing nations are taking care to provide the state-of-art medical care and infrastructure facilities which has contributed a lot towards attracting medical tourism. On the other hand, patients have to wait for a long time for their treatments in the developed nations. So, there exists a higher probability of getting treated at reduced / no waiting time in the medical tourist destinations like India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, etc. This is also one of the major reasons why patients prefer traveling to these popular medical tourism destinations as they get their healthcare services immediately.
Availability of Resources
One of the reasons for patients to travel to foreign countries is when there is no availability of the required treatments, specialists or surgeons, and infrastructures in their home country. Global Healthcare sector has grown to the extent that treatments for some of the major specialties including fertility treatments, neurosurgery, spine care, dental treatments, and others are available at international standards. Surgeons and infrastructure facilities are sufficient enough to support the surgeries conducted. So, patients requiring treatments approach the medical tourism companies for their treatments at international destinations.
Scope for combining treatments with vacation
When patients plan for cosmetic procedures, dental treatments, bariatric surgeries, etc. they would prefer combining their treatments with vacation at international destinations where there are standard facilities for treatment and vacation. They prefer spending time with their families in international destinations away from their home town and relax themselves from their routine work. Medical Tour platforms like Medditour would be of great use for exploring treatments combined with vacation. At the same time, MedlinePlus mentions in one of its articles that certain things have to be planned ahead to make vacation healthcare a success which includes medical records and other items to take, safety aspects to consider including insurance, vaccination, vehicle safety, etc.
Many surgeries require rehab support and physical therapies after the operation. Alternative treatments like Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation also help in rehabilitation of patients in many cases. Alternative treatments like Ayurveda are preferred in hair treatments as well. For making all these possible, people travel overseas for treatments.
Above all, treatment combined with vacation could act as stress-relief so that they can recover faster. To conclude, medical tourism would be the best choice for treatment cum vacation.