Travel Industry

 Health Tourism aka medical tourism – where you travel to a foreign nation for cheaper and easily available medical treatment coupled with a slice of tourism – has been quietly making in-roads into both the healthcare and tourism industries.

Jonathan Edelheit, Medical Tourism Association

The future of this budding sector hangs in the balance today, when seen in the context of the crisis in healthcare and the downturn in the travel sector.

To get a better idea of what’s going on, we had a chat with Jonathan Edelheit, Founder and CEO of the West Palm Beach, Florida based Medical Tourism Association.

Question 1: You were the first person to implement medical tourism into a US health plan (at United Group). You are also the founder (and current CEO) of the Medical Tourism Association. Should we speak to you as a pioneer in this field, or as a representative of the entire sector? Related question – does the MTA represent the entire medical tourism industry, or are there other organizations? Exactly how big is your organization (how many countries, how many members,etc.)?

J. Edelheit: I guess a little of both, I am now using all my experience as a pioneer in medical tourism and my knowledge to help educate everyone involved in the industry or interested in medical tourism on all the issues surrounding quality, aftercare, patient safety, legal issues, and education and implementation amongst many other things.  No matter who it is, an insurance company, employer, health insurance agent, hospital or government they don’t know who to turn to, to get accurate information on this industry.  That is what the MTA is here for.  It represents the entire medical tourism and global healthcare industry around the world, and we are the only ones out there doing this.  We have over 300 corporate members and offices in over six countries and growing.

Question 2:  This being a travel industry blog, our readers would be more interested in the tourism part of medical tourism. So speaking in numbers, first of all – how many people actually travel outside the US for treatment every year? Second, can you give us an estimate of how many people traveling abroad are more interested in travel & tourism, along with a bit of non-essential medical procedure (like tummy tucks, beauty treatments, weight-loss, etc), as opposed to the number of people who basically travel for essential surgery and major treatments.

J. Edelheit: Deloitte Estimates that in 2009 1.8 million Americans will leave the US for surgery.  This is a absolutely huge number and represents over $5 billion dollars in spending on overseas surgery.  This doesn’t even take into account the tourism dollars spent.  A recent patient survey the MTA did found that 82.5% of patients bring a companion.  Many patients are in the country for 2 to 3 weeks with their companion so this has a huge effect on tourism revenue for the country.  Also, people are surprised to find that a majority of the patients engaging in medical tourism also engage in some form of tourism.

Question 3: Does the MTA support the Health Reform Plan being debated in Congress? How does it impact the medical tourism sector? I mean, if the reforms work, there would be less of those without insurance or those not fully covered, and it would reduce your clientele. Related question – Are medical tourists basically those without proper health coverage, or do people who are fully covered also opt for treatment overseas – less costs, better treatment, less wait, etc?

J. Edelheit: It’s tough to say whether we support it or not because all the details of bill have not been made public, and I think any organization needs all the facts in order to make an intelligent decision.  What we do believe is the healthcare reform plan is not going to lower costs but significantly increase costs, which will drive more people overseas for medical tourism.  I don’t know anyone involved in the US health insurance industry who actually believes it will lower costs. Medical Tourists are both the insured and uninsured.  Many employers and insurance companies are starting to offer medical tourism and give incentives for patients to travel internationally for healthcare.

Question 4: Getting down to specifics – which are the most popular places in the world, if you want to be a medical tourist? Can you name the top 5 cities and what kind of medical treatment they’re famous for?

J. Edelheit: Seoul, Korea for spinal surgery and orthopedics, San Jose Costa Rica for Orthopedics, India for heart procedures and transplants, Bangkok Thailand for heart procedures and orthopedics. The problem is it is hard to name the top five destinations.  There are many places that offer huge savings and have great quality such as Germany, Spain, Singapore, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador.  The list goes on and on.

Question 5: Speaking about your area of expertise – how many US health plans are there which offer overseas treatment? I mean, if one of our readers wanted to join a health plan under which he or she could go abroad for treatment, what would your advice be?

J. Edelheit:  There are approximately five large health plans that I know of and several more moving forward.  I can’t make a recommendation of joining a plan because three of them are doing it but quietly and haven’t made a big deal out of it yet.

Question 6: How about corporate clients? Are companies willing to accept medical tourism to reduce healthcare costs? Can you cite any examples?

J. Edelheit:  Yes.  We have our upcoming World Medical Tourism and Global Health Congress, which takes place October 26-28th, 2009 in Los Angeles (www.medicaltourismcongress.com/). The whole purpose of this event is to bring employers and insurance companies together to learn about medical tourism and how to implement it and offer it to their employees.  We also bring in all the top hospitals from around the world to network with them. Over 20 tourism boards are sponsoring it.   Hannaford Brothers a large supermarket chain in Maine with over 10,000 employees who implemented medical tourism with Aetna will be presenting at the conference.

Question 7:  Do you expect – or need – any help from the travel & tourism sectors? Related question – Any advice for travel companies who want to cash in on medical tourism? How should a travel company go about offering medical tourism packages to its customers?

J. Edelheit: Yes. We are creating a special membership category for travel and tourism companies.  I think there is tremendous opportunity for them, especially now that travel is down.  Medical Tourism may make up for losses and help grow their business.  With surgeries costing up to 90% less overseas, the number of Americans traveling for medical tourism will continue to grow each year.  For a travel company looking to implement this, I suggest they partner with a MTA certified medical tourism facilitator who can handle and coordinate all the medical care once the person has decided to travel.  At our upcoming conference in Los Angeles all the top medical tourism facilitators will be there to meet with travel companies interested in getting into this space.

Question 8:  Anything else you want to add about medical tourism, the MTA, and your plans for the future?

J. Edelheit: The Medical Tourism Association’s plans are to grow the industry in a stable  and positive direction.  We are working on many programs to get the “word out” on medical tourism to the average American so they can realize about what a great benefit this.