What is Medical Tourism?

Medical tourism is the act of traveling to other countries to obtain medical, dental, and surgical care. A combination of many factors has lead to the recent increase in popularity of medical tourism: exorbitant costs of healthcare in industrialized nations, ease and affordability of international travel, favorable currency exchange rates in the global economy, rapidly improving technology and standards of care in many countries of the world.

Medical tourists are generally residents of the industrialized nations of the world, the countries they travel are typically the less developed ones with favourable currency exchange ratios. There are also many companies that can help arrange patients' surgeries, travel arrangements and tours. Many of these companies partner with specific hospitals, thereby arranging a cheaper price for their patients than one could arrange on their own through the hospital directly.

More and more people from all over the world are traveling to other countries not only as tourists who come for sightseeing and shopping but also to get medical, dental, and surgical services from hospitals and other health destinations. Medical tourism is a rapidly growing industry with countries like Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Hungary, India, Israel, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand and the Philippines actively promoting it.

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. Gastric bypass surgery in the U.S. can cost $10,000 to $20,000. Overseas it can be done for well under $5,000.