Medical Travel Quality Alliance | MTQUAMedical Tourism Certification, Best Practices, World's Best Hospitals

Costs of medical tourism packages

Comparing costs among countries, and even within the same country, can be like trying to swim through a pool of Red Sea mud – you get nowhere. Popular medical tourism surgery packages can often be misleading and not provide the direct comparisons that are necessary.

True value of medical treatment costs abroad

In popular medical destinations like Thailand and India, the value of medical treatment is changing to reflect domestic and global economic and political pressures.

As competition in medical tourism from lesser known medical destinations and medical providers increases, there is a new economics of medical tourism.

Today’s medical tourists need to know, first, how much savings they can expect in a medical tourism package compared to having medical treatment at home, and second, what will they pay for the package in different medical destinations. See the full-size infographic.

Surgeon’s fees

The greater portion of a medical tourism package cost is usually the surgeon’s fee. This depends on the surgeon chosen, and the extent and complexity of the procedure. It also depends on the medical discipline. Plastic surgeons and heart surgeons, not only in New York or Toronto, but also in in Singapore, Seoul or Sao Paolo, like to drive Mercedes and Porsches.

Comparing costs

The knowledgeable medical traveler is the wise medical traveler. Just as we want you to seek as much information about your procedures as you can, we encourage you to compare costs.

Beware of comparing apples to oranges when comparing costs of surgery packages.

Often, lists published by professional associations reflect only surgeon’s fees and do not cover the additional costs for anesthesiologist, operating room, hospital stay, and post-surgery recovery facility.

Plastic surgery

Plastic surgery may be the most misundertood and abused cost. A medical traveler’s best comparison for a procedure is to visit a plastic surgeon at home for a consultation. The cost estimate produced at the visit should be used to get similar costs for comparable procedures.

More than costs

If you are considering a medical vacation in a foreign country and making your decision based primarily on cost, be sure to consider and review carefully the level of medical service you will be receiving and the ability of your medical provider to respond to any and all emergencies both during surgery and after your treatment.

Medical concierge and international patient care management

Care management for medical tourists comes in many forms. Most often, a medical travel company will contract with a local travel or destination agency to provide “ground services” for the patient.

In other cases, a medical travel company provides a a more extensive or comprehensive service for the medical traveler. This service can be the equivalent of a care manager, offering patient liaison services, nursing support, and medical travel planning. In such cases, the care manager may also function as a patient advocate or patient representative.

Medical concierge

A medical concierge is often found on site at the medical destination. The medical concierge has no medical training or experience. “Medical” refers only to the function of ensuring the patient gets to all medical appointments on time, and visiting a patient in the hospital.

The medical concierge may function as a personal assistant, providing services from airport pickup to family liaison and shopping assistance. The services of a medical concierge are restricted to not much more than a travel guide.

International patient care manager

The international patient care manager is a professional trained to support and help you manage your medical and surgical care away from home. The international patient care manager speaks the local language and has access to a network of local medical support services that you may need.

The international patient care manager is your advocate, your agent and your partner. The international patient care manager takes responsibility for your care at the medical destination.

The patient care manager helps plan your procedures, coordinates with the medical team to ensure that all hospital and surgical requirements are satisfied, facilitates all consultations, communication, activities, and events, provides support and reassurance to the patient, family and friends, and manages all post-surgery recovery needs and services.

Having a patient care manager working for you gives you immeasurable confidence, support, and reassurance at a time when you need to put all your energies and thoughts toward preparing for your procedures and having a stress-free recovery.

Should an unanticipated event occur, the patient care manager, on duty on site at your medical destination, can step in to do whatever needs to be done, to make new arrangements or change existing ones, and to provide any other support necessary to keep you on your path to comfortable, uneventful medical care, surgical procedure, and recovery.

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