medical tourism

Medical Tourism Market is Expected to Reach USD 32.5 Billion Globally in 2019:

Transparency Market Research is Published new Market Report “Medical Tourism Market (India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, Turkey, South Korea, Costa Rica, Poland, Dubai and Philippines) – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 – 2019” The global medical tourism market was valued at USD 10.5 billion in 2012 and is estimated to reach a market worth USD 32.5 billion in 2019 at a CAGR of 17.9% from 2013 to 2019.

Medical tourism is defined as an act of travel of patients from their home country to other destinations for availing medical services. Rise in healthcare costs in developed countries coupled with the availability of high quality medical services at a low cost in developing countries have given a boost to the medical tourism industry. These medical services range from elective procedures such as cosmetic surgeries to complicated surgeries such as cardiac, orthopedics, neurosurgery and others. Significant growth in this industry is due to economic developments in developing countries that in turn has led to the growth in the medical industry and quality of medical services.

Rise in the healthcare expenditure in developed countries coupled with in the growing elderly population has also contributed to the gowth of the medical tourism across the globe. Economic crisis in the U.S. increased the number of uninsured population, consequently further triggering the growth of this market. Recently, there are approximately 50 million uninsured Americans that are willing to travel abroad for affordable and quality medical care. Globalization and improved communication technology act as a catalyst to boost the growth of this industry.

The development of medical tourism industry is based on several factors such as reduced cost of procedures, long waiting time and high demand for cosmetic surgeries. Medical travel is not only witnessed for intricate procedures but is also expanding due to growing demand for cosmetic and dental procedures since these are usually not reimbursed under regular health insurance policies. Patients travelling abroad can save from 30% to 90% on a procedure, including their travel expenditures, as compared to the medical costs in their own countries. Long waiting time is another factor which has substantially boosted the growth of this industry. Patients based in Canada and U.K travel to low cost destinations for their treatments in order to avoid long waiting periods in their own countries and receive timely access to serious ailments.

Medical tourism industry is dominated by the Asian region that has captured the maximum share of the market. This region is highly competitive owing to the presence of technologically advanced medical specialties, less stringent government regulations and attractive locations. Thailand and India are recognized internationally for their high end medical services and receive patients from across the globe. Singapore is renowned for its healthcare infrastructure and receives patients primarily for complex medical procedures. Thailand, India and Singapore accounted for approximately 60% of the total revenue of the Asian region in 2012. The Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico attract maximum number of patients from the U.S owing to the geographic proximity and cultural similarities. Similarly, growth in Turkey is witnessed on account of growing demand of cosmetic surgeries.

However, a paradigm shift in the market is seen owing to strong competition among the players of this industry. Malaysia is poised to have a significant growth in this market and is likely to emerge as a fastest growing country in terms of medical tourism with a CAGR of over 25% from 2013 to 2019. This advent in Malaysian medical tourism market is due to cost advantage over Thailand and Singapore. Moreover, rise in popularity of Malaysian region is attributed to many factors such as advanced healthcare infrastructure, highly skilled professionals, visa benefits and others. Additionally, robust government support for promotion of Malaysian medical tourism has propelled the growth in this nation.

Moreover, increase in the government initiatives and growing inclination of private sector hospitals towards medical tourism is further supplanting the growth of this market. Key healthcare providers in this industry include Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., Bumrumgrad International Hospital, Bangkok Medical Center, Prince Court Medical Center and others.

The Medical Tourism market is segmented as follows:

The global medical tourism market is segmented into the following categories:
Medical Tourism Market, by Geography
India
Overview
Cost Comparison of Procedures
SWOT Analysis
Government Support
India Inbound Medical Tourism (No. of patients)
India Medical Tourism: Top Revenue Contributing Country (%) (2012)
Thailand
Singapore
Malaysia
Mexico
Brazil
Turkey
South Korea
Taiwan
Prospective Countries
Costa Rica
Poland
Dubai
Philippines

Source: Information Week

India’s absolete visa rules undermine medical tourism

India, long seen as a centre for cost-effective treatment by people around the world, is losing its competitive edge in the medical tourism space.

The strict visa regime is making people give the country a miss in favour of other Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia which, although costlier, are seen as more welcoming of medical tourists. While there are no studies to show how much business is being lost annually, experts say getting a medical visa to India is almost impossible without hassles.

“Stringent visa rules are really ruining our prospects of becoming a hub for medical tourism,” says Prathap C Reddy, founder and chairman of Apollo Hospitals. The medical tourism industry, valued at $10.5 billion globally in 2012, is estimated to reach a $32.5 billion by 2019. India was able to garner a chunk of this revenue initially, but despite its obvious advantages in terms of quality and costs, the country has been unable to grow the business, says Reddy.

“Our infection rate is only half of the best hospitals in the world. India not only has clinical excellence, but it also has cost benefits. Having got that brand, we would have expected that India would become a great attraction for people, but that has not happened,” he adds. The country attracted only 350,000 medical tourists in 2012 compared to 1.2 million by Thailand and 610,000 by Singapore, according to data from Patients Beyond Borders, a guidebook for medical tourism.

As things stand today, delays in visa processing are rampant, even in case of genuine medical emergencies, and the fee for visa processing is much higher when compared to Thailand or Malaysia.

Another visa-related hassle is the requirement for foreigners to periodically report to the police during their stay in India. “How can anyone ask a patient to go and report at a police station?” says Reddy.

Pradeep Thukral, chief executive officer of SafeMed, a medical travel facilitation agency and founder of the India Medical Tourism Association, says visa application process for medical tourists is cumbersome, to say the least: patients are asked to come to the Indian embassy which is not easy when they are sick, furnish a whole lot of documents like bank statements and medical reports and then referred to the embassy doctor for a second opinion. “It seems they try their best to dissuade the patient from going to India,” adds Thukral.

Experts says tweaking the visa rules will go a long way in making India, which currently attracts only 3 per cent of the global medical tourists, an attractive destination for patients.

“As we aspire to harness the true potential of this enormous market, particularly against the backdrop of an attractive dollar/rupee conversion rate, a liberal visa regime would be of great help. Speedier grant of visas and their easy availability would go further in enabling the Indian medical sector,” says Vishal Bali, group chief executive officer, Fortis Healthcare.

He says adequate public infrastructure outside the hospitals as in other countries would further strengthen India’s position. In Thailand, for instance, medical tourists are treated with tea on arrival while they wait for their visa and then are taken in a bus waiting outside the airport to the hospital. Thailand promoted medical tourism when its currency depreciated in the 1990s and today it is one of the largest medical tourism destinations in the world. Singapore, too, is fast catching up, even as treatment costs there are comparable to those in the US.

“The governments in these countries help the industry with incentives and other support. In India, the government should also do the same and remove the barriers,” says Reddy.

However, it is not just Southeast Asian countries which are becoming a competition for India. For the North American patients, destinations with improving healthcare infrastructure such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia are fast emerging as attractive options, despite higher costs than India, say international healthcare experts.

Some experts even go to the extent of saying there is a case for abolishing medical visas altogether. Josef Woodman, chief executive officer, Patients Beyond Boarders, says medical visa ipso facto makes things more complicated and serves little purpose. “I see no reason not to abolish medical visas”.

There’s no doubt medical tourism’s potential in terms of job creation is huge. Reddy says the sector can create 8-10 million jobs. To add to this, unlike Indonesia or some other counties, which don’t offer liver or heart transplants, Indian hospitals can do everything which is done anywhere in the world. There success rates are impressive too. In Apollo for instance, the success rate for heart-related issues is around 99 per cent, and for liver transplants, it is about 90 per cent. To build on this advantage, Thukral says the government should look at issuing medical visas on arrival, provided the patient is carrying a minimum threshold of money for treatment. Among other suggestions, providing a multiple-entry visa for one year would help the medical tourism sector as well.

Source: Business Standard

Israel’s medical tourism at the crossroads

Income from medical tourism increased sharply in 2011 and 2012 to reach $140 million in 2012, according to data collected by the Health Ministry and the non-government organization Hatzlaha.  The Israeli government is exploring whether to curb or regulate medical tourism; despite the revenue it brings in-with worries that locals could suffer. The ministry has a dilemma that many hospitals have cited commercial issues for refusing to co-operate with official enquiries on how many medical tourists they actually get, as nobody has been able to find out the real numbers.

 The public hospitals took in NIS 291 million from medical tourism in 2012. Health maintenance organization Clalit reported that its 10 hospitals had revenues of NIS 70 million from medical tourism in 2012. Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem had revenues totaling NIS 108 million.

Private hospitals, including Assuta in north Tel Aviv, also had sizeable revenue from medical tourism but refused to provide numbers. One estimate indicates that Israel’s hospitals had revenues of more than half a billion shekels from medical tourism.

The public hospital with the highest medical tourism revenues was Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, with NIS 130 million a year – up nearly 70% since 2010. It was followed by Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, which had revenues of NIS 99 million (up 44% since 2010), and Beilinson Hospital, Petah Tikva, at NIS 39 million – a 490% increase over the figure from 2010.Other public hospitals with medical tourism revenue were Rambam in Haifa, with NIS 36.4 million in revenues; Assaf Harofeh Hospital, Tzrifin, at NIS 15.9 million; and Schneider Children’s Medical Center, with NIS 13.6 million.

A subcommittee within the health ministry has been set up in an attempt to regulate medical tourism, which has no government oversight or standards. Many attempts have been made to set standards and regulations for medical tourism- all have failed to happen. In May 2013 the committee said that medical tourism should account for no more than 10% of a hospital’s revenues from operations. But it has yet to submit its recommendations, so this limit is not official, and it may be impossible to enforce.

Medical tourism is a very sensitive issue for Israel’s health system. Every medical tourist admitted raises the question of whether that person is taking the place of an Israeli patient, particularly given that the hospitals are very overcrowded and the wait for treatment is long.

Medical tourists come primarily from the former Soviet Union and from Mediterranean nations. They visit for a fixed duration, and may receive treatment ahead of Israelis.

For hospitals, medical tourists are very attractive and lucrative patients. Hospitals charge them much more than they receive from Israeli patients, and one of the reasons some hospitals refuse to co-operate with the ministry is a suspicion that they greatly increase the prices for medical tourists- so increased revenue may not equate with increases numbers- but be due to severe price increases and a concentration on more expensive surgery. Unlike insurers, the medical tourists pay the hospitals immediately, and in cash. The money goes into the hospitals’ parallel business operations, as opposed to the budget subject to government oversight, which means the hospital directors have more control over the money.

Source: IMTJ

Medical cosmetic tourism in Taiwan lures high-end mainland Chinese travelers

Winnie checked into a cosy Taipei clinic one recent afternoon for a full facial rejuvenation – a few Botox injections to tackle wrinkles and then filler gels to plump up folds and lips.

It took the 39-year-old business woman, just arrived that morning from Shanghai, slightly more than three hours to complete the treatment before she headed back to a five-star hotel, feeling radiant.

Winnie, who declined to give her full name during a telephone interview with the South China Morning Post, is typical of the mid- and-high-end mainland tourists that Taiwanese tour providers are targeting to cushion the drastic impact that a new travel law implemented on the mainland has had on their business.

The law, the first introduced by the mainland to address such issues as tourist safety, unfair competition and “forced shopping”, has certainly taken a rapid and heavy toll on Taiwan’s tourism industry – the number of mainland group visitors has slumped since the regulation came into force on October 1.

Soon after Taiwan began to allow mainland tourists to visit the island in groups in 2008, cut-throat competition broke out among local travel agencies to lure their business, mainly by offering dirt-cheap tours and then recouping the costs through commissions paid by partner shops to which the tour groups were shepherded.

Since 2008, more than 6.2 million mainland tourists have visited Taiwan, a huge new revenue source worth US$15.68 billion for the island, according to the Beijing-based Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Strait.

But along with the new influx has come a wave of complaints from the tourists. Their grumbles include being forced to get up before dawn, eat food that even farm animals would refuse, and sleep in accommodation not fit for pigs.

They also lash out at the number of forced shopping tours, which cut into sightseeing.

Now, with the introduction of the travel law, group tour prices have increased by 20 to 50 per cent – and the number of mainland group visitors has dropped, totaling just 54,705 in the first 20 days of October, a drop of 35.7 per cent compared with the same period last year, Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau said.

“To cope with the new situation, local operators are encouraged to find new revenue sources, and medical cosmetic tourism is seen as one of the sources with a promising outlook,” said Lai Cheng-yi, head of the Tourism and Hotel Business Association based in Taipei.

Walter Yeh, executive vice president of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council  , said that in addition to allowing mainland visitors to travel here in groups as well as individually, the island also eased regulations in January last year to permit them to visit Taiwan for medical treatment, including for cosmetic procedures.

“This is a good time for local operators to develop this field of tourism,” he said, adding that Taiwan’s medical care is noted for its good quality and relative cheapness.

Some 100,000 medical tourists visited the island last year, up 156 per cent from 39,000 in 2011, generating revenue of around NT$70 billion (HK$18.4 billion), of which at least 40 per cent came from mainland tourists, Yeh said.

The profitable business has prompted hospitals and medical cosmetic clinics to work with Taiwanese travel agencies to organize cosmetic tours.

Compared with South Korea, whose cosmetic surgery is rated among the best in the world, such procedures in Taiwan mainly involve gel injections and very limited invasive surgery, medical cosmetic operators said.

“But with mainland standards at least five years behind Taiwan, many mainland tourists are eager to have facial rejuvenation and skin tightening treatment here,” said Dr Chu Chih-kai, head of Taipei-based Beauty Plus, one of the island’s leading medical cosmetic clinics.

Dr Chu said Taiwan’s high efficiency, convenience, its adherence to international standards as well as transparency and safety were major reasons why mainlanders were keen to take advantage of the services available in Taiwan.

“Ten per cent of our clients come from the mainland,” Dr Chu said, adding they include men as well as women.

Several big travel agencies in Taiwan have worked with major hospitals and clinics to offer medical cosmetic services to mainlanders. Some agencies have offered packages ranging from NT$45,000 to NT$180,000 for trips that include stays at five-star hotels and sightseeing tours.

As part of marketing strategies to attract more mainlanders to take medical cosmetic tours, Kuan Chou Travel Service will hold a three-day seminar from December 8 in the southern city of Kaohsiung to discuss medical cosmetics and its trends on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

“Participants will include physicians, treatment operators and tour providers from Taiwan, the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau,” Silvia Hu, marketing and PR manager of Kuan Chou Travel Service.

To ensure quality and good service, the Health Ministry has approved 38 hospitals and clinics to treat mainland tourists, while the Taiwan Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation, a non-profit hospital accreditation agency, has certified 19 medical cosmetic clinics for their quality of treatment.

Winnie, who came on a five-day tour, certainly has no complaints about the quality of service. On the contrary, she declared herself “highly satisfied” with what she described as an “afternoon tea” treatment. It made her look great.

Source: South China Morning post