Change in the medical tourism climate based on Keith Pollard

The article gives some insight on how medical tourism industry growth from a UK perspective and how it might have reached the maturity phase.  The article claims that many investors lost money amid the hype of the potential of the market which did not pan out and the protectionism. However, those that understood the market and were best equipped, informed and organized were successful.  Even with the changes in healthcare through ACA, the economic downturn, and rising costs for travel, it seems there is still the demand to provide affordable healthcare and thus payers and goverments are having to reconsider cross boundary options for healthcare.  The article states that this future model might be more regional rather than global.

http://www.imtj.com/articles/2011/blog-after-the-gold-rush-40165/
http://www.imtj.com/articles/2011/medical-tourism-trends/


In my opinion, we might be going from one growth curve, to another as in the diagram below:

Survey results from Journal of General Internal Medicine by Alleman, Luger et al.

This article agrees with the lower number of around 13,500 US travellers going abroad. This gives an approx. landscape of 45 medical tourist facilitators, each sending approximately 300 patients abroad. 65% of these facilitators were paid by the physicians, while the remaining received compensation from the foreign provider.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3077479/

Article on the shriking Medical Tourism market by Ian Youngman

More from a UK perspective, this article states that people will travel less for major surgeries and more for faster access. This is likely the case for european countries where the government sponsored health system creates wait lines as also seen in Canada.

http://www.imtj.com/articles/2011/the-medical-tourism-world-is-shrinking-30099/

Survey conducted on US based medical tourism facilitators by Christina Peters and Katherine Sauer

The authors described an increasing trend in the inquiry by US patients for medical services abroad. The actual number of trips taken was 13% of the inquiry. Results on the various factors for travel abroad for medical services is also shown.

http://www.na-businesspress.com/jmdc/sauerweb.pdf

Paper by Maryam Khan

Author presents various arguments for medical tourism specifically cost savings of up to 90%, where not only individuals but employers and insurance companies are considering providing medical tourism as an option to their employees or insured. She mentions the Blue Shield of California Access Baja Plan that offers people living close to the border option to get treated in Mexico. The article mentions that according to International Federation of Health Plans  almost 11% of US employers are currently offering medical tourism and about 73% of US companies might offer Consumer Driven Health Plans that allows for a medical tourism choice. It states that medical tourists typical take a companion and half get their information off the internet. Again half used a medical travel facilitator and were mostly happy with their experience.

The paper mentions extra options hotels are providing including private entrance, floors with nurse stations, wheelchair accessibility etc.

The paper also indicates that there are many hurdles to medical tourism including coverage by their insurance policies, visas, post surgery complications, language barriers, sanitation, and lack of legal recourse. Issues with the long travel itself are also discussed.


http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1371&context=refereed

Disruptive Innovation Article by Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen's book "The innovator's prescription" talks about solutions to the healthcare crisis.  Its primary premise is that the hospital system of today contains 3 mutually exclusive and competing business models.  In order to create efficiencies, increase quality and reduce costs, it is important for the healthcare system to recognize this, and split the models.  We have already started to see this happen in some cases, with some hospitals focusing on integrated cancer treatment, while offshore clinics providing value-based, fixed cost for routine procedures.  This article is a good summary of the book and talks about matching clinician skills to the difficulty of the medical problem.

http://hbr.org/web/extras/insight-center/health-care/will-disruptive-innovations-cure-health-care

World Health Organization Bulletin on movement of patients across borders

This article referes to the need for the uninsured to seek medical tourism from the US, and that insurance companies have started to offer options to seek medical procedures abroad.


http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/1/10-076612/en/