Newsletter
Monday, July 5th, 2010
3rd World Medical Tourism and Global Healthcare Congress
Time is flying by and every day we are closer to this year´s 3rd World Medical Tourism and Global Healthcare Congress on Sept. 22nd. Once again www.MedicalTourism.com will be a Silver Sponsor for this important conference.
We look forward to the Congress to meet and stay in touch with all industry players. We focus on being a center of information and it is very important for us to stay on top of the industry´s development. There are a lot of new opportunities for the market to keep growing and it´s the one and only place where we can meet and discuss with our colleagues.
We have some exciting projects to promote the medical tourism market in participating countries. There are a lot of opportunities for medical providers, Facilitators and related businesses to increase their activities in Medical Tourism.
We hope to see you there, Don´t Forget to come by our Booth!
Kind Regards,
MedicalTourism.com´s Team
Monday, June 7th, 2010
World Medical Tourism Conference
Once again www.MedicalTourism.com will be a Silver Sponsor of the MTA´s World Medical Tourism Conference.
There are so much things to look forward this year!
Great speakers from Employers like Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Lowe´s and the Discovery Channel; Insurance Companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Aetna; more involvement from huge employers, and brand new buyers of healthcare VIP program that benefits 200 insurance companies and (last but not least) meeting with you!!!
September is going to be great! Make sure and visit www.medicaltourismcongress.com for more information on the congress.
Please let us know if you´re coming to L.A. We would love to meet with you at our booth. We are the leading online portal for the medical tourism industry and look forward to see you there.
With a growing industry, big players and the best congress of the year you won´t want to miss it…
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Marketing Medical Tourism through Social Media
Are you looking to take your medical tourism marketing to the next level? Social media marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most effective ways to market your products and services. Basically, it is traditional networking on steroids, where you interact, often in real time, with potentially dozens or even hundreds of potential and current customers.
Medical tourism providers can adopt social media marketing as a additional tool for their marketing plans. It also contributes to build stronger relationships that show transparency and trust to your clients and colleagues.
Facebook and Twitter are just an example of the most popular social media networks used today. They are widely used by different types of businesses around the world, and the medical tourism industry is no exception. Hospitals, clinics and doctors are finally realizing the need to have a closer relationship with the market they need to target.
Although one might think of social marketing as simply setting up a Facebook page and Twitter account, it is much more than that. There are steps you need to take in order to be prepared to launch a social media marketing program. There should be someone in charge of updating the information so that it is fresh and relevant for your fans to maintain interest in your page. In Facebook, for example, you should interact with your followers, posting news, events or information that generates interest in your business.
Twitter provides a similar approach to Facebook in that you are trying to gain as many followers as possible, however, its style is more focused on the individual and “what is happening right now.” In the same way you should try to deliver the best and freshest most relevant information possible, including news and updates of others you may be following. This way, people will see that you find their posts interesting and will start following you as a result.
These and other social networking options like Medical Tourism City, if well managed will give you a closer relationship and feedback from your current market of interest.
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Healthcare reform expected to increase medical tourism
Although the dust has yet to settle on the recent healthcare reform battle, those involved with medical tourism see President Obama’s triumph as a boom for the industry. Many medical tourism facilitators and overseas hospitals are already preparing themselves for what they believe will be an era of significant medical tourism growth over the next few years.
Is this an overly optimistic assessment of how things will play out? Or are there solid reasons for believing medical tourism will benefit from healthcare reform?
While healthcare reform legislation includes many positive provisions such as:
• Universal healthcare coverage (at least in theory)
• Waiving of Pre-existing Condition Clauses
• Eliminating annual and life time limits
The fact is many experts believe these provisions will burden an already comatose healthcare system with higher costs and increased bureaucracy, leading to:
• Longer waiting times due to a combination of increased insured patient volume and a shortage of doctors, thus, encouraging people towards medical tourism.
• Increased bureaucracy and paperwork to resolve insurance/coverage issues, making people opt for a faster and better service such as medical tourism.
• More US hospitals pulling out of Medicare due to program spending cuts which could drive more patients overseas.
• More US insurance companies and employers will implement Medical tourism as a cost savings approach because of increased costs of health insurance.
• Uncertainties regarding insurance coverage for dental treatments may spur more people to go abroad for these types of procedures.
Why will healthcare costs soar? For one, waiving pre-existing condition clauses and making insurance premiums the same for healthy and sick people will drive health insurance costs up dramatically, making employers and insurers more interested in offering medical tourism as an option to keep costs down.
What does this mean for employers, insurance carriers and patients? It means that they are going to have to look seriously at ways to reduce their overall healthcare costs. Medical tourism has already proven itself as a viable solution for self-pay patients looking to lower their healthcare costs without sacrificing quality. It seems likely that healthcare reform will push corporate America to do the same.
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Medical Tourism Facilitators
The amount of Medical Tourism Facilitators is growing around the world. The numbers are expected to be in the hundreds to thousands for upcoming years. These companies work directly with patients in helping coordinate their medical tourism trips.
Medical Tourism Facilitators are paid by hospitals through a commission. While most don’t charge patients, some do also charge a fee to the patient. There are good medical tourism facilitators and bad medical tourism facilitators. Hospitals and patients should be careful in which medical tourism facilitators they partner with.
Medical Tourism Facilitators are the ones who started the medical tourism industry and got it off the ground by helping patients in one country find hospitals in another. While there will be a need for medical tourism facilitators in the future some hospitals are attempting to go directly to the patient and not work with medical tourism facilitators.
What to look for in a Medical Tourism Hospital?
MedicalTourism.Com believes there are several requirements that patients should look for when choosing a hospital that provides medical tourism services. The hospital should speak the patient’s language, have an international patient department, provide a package price for the patient, and should be able to provide the patient with doctor’s credentials and background.
Some hospitals are attempting to market to medical tourism patients but they do not have the basic requirements in place that are mentioned above. It is very important that hospitals are well organized to provide the best possible service, taking care of the smallest details such as transportation to and from the hospital and appointment coordination.
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Medical Tourism Pricing
Medical Tourism pricing plays a vital role in patients’ choices of where they travel for healthcare. Prices vary in not only by country and region, but by hospitals in specific cities. The difficult part for patients is that hospital packages and what is included within that package also varies by country, region and city. A hospital in one city may not include rehabilitation in the price of the medical tourism package, where another hospital in the same city may. Medical Supplies, Prescriptions, and medical devices also may vary by region and country. A patient may get a knee implant that last five years longer in one country versus a different country. Hospitals should focus on being descriptive as possible as to what is included in their pricing and what is not. This type of disclosure can help it in its marketing and receiving more patients. Some hospitals may even be surprised to find that they are losing patients simply because they are not providing detailed information that other hospitals are, or being able realize what they are doing is not competitive and adjust their strategy. Another problem facing the industry is that some hospitals in certain countries are creating a two tier pricing structure and charging foreign patients many more than local patients.
International Patient Centers
Many hospitals are investing in International Patient Centers (IPCs). These international patient centers have trained staff to deal with foreign patients. The most successful hospitals in medical tourism have trained International Patient Centers (IPCs). Without an IPC it can be difficult to not only attract a foreign patient but to provide service to them while they are at the hospital. It is not difficult to establish an IPC, and hospitals that do not have them should consider creating an IPC. Providing services to medical tourists is a big revenue source for hospitals. Adding an IPC to the hospital can help significantly increate the revenue from medical tourists.
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Growth of Medical Tourism in 2010
Last week World Report and US News reported that Medical Tourism expected to grow quickly in the next few years. They have reported that “Medical Tourism” was largely grounded by the sharp economic downturn last year. In 2010 it is expected to make a comeback as people begin to feel more positive about their finances. Medical costs in many countries continue to be much lower than those in the United States. Other key factors that help the industry to keep growing include improving medical facilities all over the world, stronger accreditation programs, more consumer support services, and maturing relationships between leading U.S. medical schools and foreign partners.
Marketing Medical tourism
The Deloitte report estimates the medical tourism business to be multibillionaire. So, are you promoting medical tourism? Are you working on the growth of your business? Has the patient and contact influx increased lately? Apparently only a handful of hospitals are marketing themselves for medical tourism. There are even doctors and hospitals expecting patients to come with no advertising efforts. We also see doctors or certain hospitals who are arrogant or egotistical. They believe in their city or country their hospital is the best or one of the best and because of this they do not spend any marketing money in their own country and draw the wrong conclusion that other people around the world will come to learn they are #1 in their region or country and therefore they don’t need to advertise internationally. Unfortunately, that´s not the reality. A hospital may have prestige in their country, outside their region they usually have NO reputation at all or no one knows who they are. Hospitals and doctors must overcome this misperception of their fame and ego and start working to build an international reputation.
Medical Tourism Wiki
MedicalTourism.com is the #1 website in Medical Tourism with the most traffic and the highest rankings on Google. We have a highly visited Medical Tourism Wiki where hospitals, doctors and governments can add their own unique “content” and information about medical tourism in specific countries and cities. Surprisingly few hospitals, doctors or governments have sent in content to be added to the website. Since MedicalTourism.com is #1 on Google and other search engines it is surprising to see things hospitals and governments should improve. Without supplying information your country, city or region then patients, insurance companies or employers will not know of the quality of healthcare or tourism available in your area when they search our Medical Tourism Wiki page. If you are a hospital, doctor or with the government you should really take advantage of this benefit and submit valuable information for people interested in your country. This fits well with the previous article about marketing. You need to do everything to market yourself and your organization to get know worldwide. Take advantage of this feature; Adding content to Medical Tourism.com’s wiki is free!
Monday, February 1st 2010
Growth of Medical Tourism Industry
The Medical Tourism Industry has grown substantially over the past few years. Deloitte says that almost 1.6 million Americans will travel for medical tourism by 2012 each year and that the industry is growing by 35% per year. Medical Tourism is guaranteed to grow at a very fast rate.
Scott Edelstein, a healthcare counsellor from US-based law firm Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, forecast that the value of global medical tourism would rise to 100 billion dollars in 2012 from 60 billion dollars in 2006. Many international hospitals and governments expect more growth of patients from the US marketplace now that healthcare reform efforts seemed to have stopped.
MedicalTourism.com the #1 ranked website on Google for Medical Tourism has seen an increase in interest from both patients and medical tourism facilitators. 2010 is expected to see real growth in medical tourism as medical tourism rebounds from the recession.
Korea – an Emerging Medical Tourism Destination
According to the AFP, Korea’s goal is to have one million foreign patients a year by 2020. "Today demand for medical services is higher than ever and medical tourism is growing rapidly," Vice Knowledge Economy Minister Kim Young-Hak told the opening of a three-day medical tourism expo recently.
Singapore in 2007 reportedly received 350,000 patients and Korea’s goal is to surpass Singapore as the leading medical tourism country in Asia. Korea is targeting the Middle East, Japan, China, Russia and the US markets for patients.
South Korea is considered competitive in plastic surgery, dental care and ophthalmology, according to a 2008 government survey. Vice-minister Kim said the cost of medical services in South Korea was around 30 percent of the price of treatment in the United States and around 60 percent of that in Japan. Park, the head of the Korea Global Healthcare Association, said Korea’s "short-term goal is to become a leader in Asia's medical tourism industry.”
South Korea is organizing one of the largest and first Asia Medical Tourism and Global Healthcare Conferences in the world April 13th-15th, 2010 in Seoul Korea. The conference is a partnership between KHIDI which is a part of the Ministry of Health in Korea and the Medical Tourism Association. More information on the conference can be found at www.asiamedicaltourismcongress.com
