Why is Medical Tourism Growing?

Why are more and more people around the world bypassing their local medical providers and, instead, choosing to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles for medical care? Is it a subliminal yearning for some type of masochistic medical adventure or the lure of super economical airfare? In reality there are a number of factors that are contributing directly or indirectly to medical tourism’s explosive growth, these include:

• A trend towards globalization of services including healthcare
• A growing population of baby boomers in need of care for degenerative conditions such as a failing heart and joints
• Healthcare costs continually rising, which motivates people to look for innovative solutions
• Millions of uninsured or underinsured people are being forced to look outside traditional healthcare options
• People have better access to information than they did fifteen or twenty years ago, particularly through the Internet
• Hospitals, clinics, doctors, and medical tourism facilitators are increasingly and enticingly advertising their services
• State-of-the-art procedures are not available in many locations
• Patients cannot access procedures due to long wait times and religious or cultural reasons
• People searching for non FDA approved procedures
• People searching for higher quality medical care wherever it may be

Whether the prime motivator is affordability, accessibility, availability or better quality, medical tourism’s popularity is being fueled by a rapidly growing market of potential customers who, in many cases, are being forced to look outside traditional healthcare models for solutions to their healthcare needs. In sum, it is a movement of patients in search of value.

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