Is Medical Tourism the Future of Healthcare?

Many of our patients travel to Guangzhou from all over the world for medical treatment and tourism. China medical tourism can help with becoming a patient, travel arrangements and language assistance. If you want to know more about our services, please browse the web:h http://www.medicaltourism.hk/
or mail to us: giels-x@medicaltourism.hk,firstcare-china@hotmail.com

How far would you go for affordable dentistry work, a hip replacement, or plastic surgery? The high cost of healthcare throughout the world has caused millions of patients to cross international borders to receive healthcare in a growing trend called medical tourism.

China Japan Thailand India Mexico
Even though it's just catching on, medical tourism isn't new. In fact, it's been around hundreds of years. In the past, many patients looking for better quality care would travel to the U.S. or other Western nations for treatment. However today, researchers are finding a reverse trend in medical tourism, where Westerners, particularly Americans, are going oversees to countries like India and Korea for more affordable care.

According to Treatment Abroad, most of the surgeries done overseas are non-emergency or elective procedures. Popular treatments include dentistry work (crowns, veneers), plastic surgery (breast augmentation, liposuction, facelift), and elective surgeries, such as laser eye surgery and hip or knee replacement.


Medical tourists in most cases aren't sacrificing quality for value. For example, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) in China is a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for cancer research. Since 2003, SYSUCC became a sister institution of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, SYSUCC gives the hospitals access to cutting edge research. Many hospitals abroad are also certified by the U.S.-based Joint Commission and staff doctors trained in the U.S. or UK.

Deloitte Consulting estimates that 1.6 million Americans will travel abroad to receive medical treatment in 2012. According to KGI Securities, 33 percent of medical tourists are from America, followed by China (29 percent), and Japan (18 percent). Most American patients travel either just across the border to Mexico or fly across the globe to Asian hubs, such as India. Of those American patients, 86 percent said they would travel overseas again for healthcare in a 2009 Medical Tourism Association survey.

There's no denying the value in traveling internationally for a procedure. In the United States an average hip replacement would cost about $43,000. This same procedure in Singapore or Thailand would cost as little as $12,000 and $9,000 in China.

There are, however, risks associated with traveling abroad for medical care. After returning home, patients won't be able to have the same contact with their surgeon, in case of complications or infections. The U.S. government also warns potential medical tourists of the different malpractice laws in each country.

Medical tourism isn't just good business for overseas hospitals, but also for countries' overall tourism industry. The Medical Tourism Association found that in 2009, almost 83 percent of patients traveled with a companion and that 90 percent of patients or companions engaged it tourism-related activities.

The famous China Medical tourism website www.medicaltourism.hk