NCPA | Study #304, Medical Tourism: Global Competition in Health Care

Patients who aren’t familiar with specific medical facilities abroad can coordinate their treatment through medical travel intermediaries. Many intermediaries use the Internet to recruit patients.³⁰ These services work like specialized travel agents.³¹ Clients of MedRetreat, for example, can choose from a menu of 183 medical procedures from seven different countries: India, Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and South Africa.³²

Intermediaries investigate health care providers and screen customers to assess those who are physically well enough to travel. Some intermediaries are affiliated with specific medical providers and send patients exclusively to those providers. But most intermediaries seek to create a broad network of providers and destinations to meet the diverse needs of patients. For instance, some patients might prefer to pay a higher fee in exchange for less travel time, while others might be willing to travel greater distances to save money.

“Pricing is highly competitive for procedures that aren’t covered by insurance.”

In addition, intermediaries often have doctors and nurses on staff to assess the medical efficacy of procedures and help patients select physicians and hospitals. For example, Medical Tours International, which sent more than 1,300 patients abroad in 2005, employs medical personnel to assist patients in trip planning and treatment decisions.³³

One of the best-known firms in the medical tourism industry is California-based PlanetHospital. [See the sidebar, “PlanetHospital.”]

PlanetHospital

PlanetHospital is a medical tourism intermediary that screens providers to ensure quality of care and assists in connecting patients to international health care providers. The company only refers patients to providers with recognized credentials that meet American standards. Once PlanetHospital has identified quality health care providers, it works closely with them to ensure they maintain quality and provide superior patient services. If the providers fail to do so, they are dropped from the referral network.

Initial patient screening consists of these steps:

When a client contacts PlanetHospital, the medical staff reviews the patient’s medical history to determine whether or not he or she is well enough to travel.
Staff members then help the client choose an appropriate physician and destination.
The client’s medical records are digitized and placed online to allow physicians in the destination country to review his or her medical history.
PlanetHospital then arranges a conference call between the potential patient and physician to discuss the procedure.

Once the patient chooses a physician, PlanetHospital assigns a case manager from the destination country to make arrangements for the procedure, including additional details such as cell phone service, transportation and airport transfers. Case managers attend to all needs that arise while the patient is in the destination country. While some intermediaries charge a percentage of the fees patients pay for medical care, PlanetHospital charges a $295 concierge fee for arranging medical trips.