Asia Health Tourism- Building On

THE high cost of medical insurance in Australia, Europe and the US is prompting thousands of people in need of surgery to look further afield.

World-class hospitals in Asia, primarily in India, Singapore and Thailand, are being targeted.

Last year, for example, 750,000 Americans sought cheaper treatment outside the US – a figure projected to reach 6 million by 2010 and 15.75 million by 2017, according to new research by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

Heart bypass operations, liver transplants, joint replacements – the sort of complex procedures that cost many tens of thousands of dollars in a top US, British or Australian hospital – can be done for a fraction of the cost but with the same level of skill in a select group of Asian institutions, according to the proponents of what is known as "medical tourism."

Heart bypass surgery that starts at $70-75,000 in the U.S. is available in India fo r $8,000 and about $16,000 in Singapore – a huge saving for those accommodation packages for family members as well.

With healthcare costs rising rapidly, medical tourism makes economic sense to a growing number of patients in the developed world. State of the art equipment, specialist surgeons trained in North America, Europe or Australia, and use of the latest techniques all help overcome the traditional fear of an operation abroad, Bali says.

In the process, a new globalized industry is being created. India, for example, hosted 225,000 international patients last year, generating $430 million of revenue. By 2010 that figure is likely to reach $1 billion.

Singapore draws 400,000 overseas patients a year, while Thailand’s massive Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok alone caters to 400,000 international visitors among its 1 million
patients a year.

The Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea also are in the Asian picture. Along with Bumrungrad, among the top hospital groups are India’s Apollo, Wockhardt, Max and Fortis, and Singapore’s Parkway Holdings.

From the U.S. perspective, Deloitte says the expected "explosive growth" in outbound medical tourism over the next three to five years, along with the rise of retail clinics, will challenge the status quo of the traditional US healthcare system.

Outward medical tourism in 2007 represented almost $16 billion in lost revenue for U.S. providers and could potentially reach $600 billion of lost revenue within a decade, it says.

Source: theaustralian.news.com Contributed by: DMSMedwire Research JSG Team