cosmetic surgery thailand phuket
cosmetic surgery thailand phuket
Of Tummy Tucks And Travel
At the Medical Tourism Conference in Los Angeles recently the exhibit hall looked more like Skagway during the Klondike than a tradeshow at the Hyatt Century Plaza. Medical Tourism may be the new gold rush. It’s an emerging industry with roles for a variety of players in scenarios yet to be defined.
Hospitals, CVBs and destination management companies, medical even airlines were in attendance with doctors, lawyers, insurance brokers and, yes, travel agents in a three-day conference that attracted interested parties from around the globe.
According to members of the Joint Commission International (the primary hospital accreditation organization internationally), more than 750,000 Americans sought treatment outside the U.S. in 2007 and that number is projected to grow to 6 million by next year.
As those Americans go to Mexico to get teeth implants, Thailand for heart surgery, or Costa Rica to put on a new face, concerns for how people get to their treatments and return from these serious surgeries are becoming as important as vetting the doctors and the hospitals where these procedures will take place. To put it all together — the patient, the hospitals, the specialists, the hotels and all the travel — are the “facilitators:” a new entity in this developing field describing someone who is part travel specialist, part medical operator, part insurance buff – who can sell a new set of teeth as easily as a trip to Disney World.
“Most clinics in this business will have a department for travel. But this business is complicated,” said Ted Cromwell, president of Travel Professionals, a travel company out of Chicago that has started playing a part in this growing field. “When it comes to medical tourism, the patients should be leaving the travel arrangements to someone who be responsible for what happens – not to Orbitz or Expedia. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong and these can be very serious if someone is sick or has just had surgery. The patient has to have a certain seat, a certain type of transfer, or may not even be allowed to return on the same airline if they are ill. Where is the hotel? Is it set up for wheelchairs? You need to have it all set up properly and the patient or client needs to have someone to call when something goes wrong.”
Some travel agents have seen a great opportunity in setting up travel for patients and have turned into facilitators specializing in a certain hospital or destination. Thailand Medical Travel & Tourism in San Diego, run by Cherie and Kiki Bright, is one such agency, providing seamless travel and tour arrangements for people scheduling medical procedures in Bangkok and Phuket.
Other agents make a complete business of becoming a medical tourism operator by finding hospitals, vetting doctors, choosing resorts, providing transport and taking care of patient concerns from start to finish. That is the case with FaceLiftMexico.com, an agency in Stuart, FLA that has been marrying U.S. travel clients with cosmetic surgery performed in San Miguel Allende, Mexico since 1994.
“This is what we do,” said Pat Marino, president and founder. “We have the flights, we know the hospitals and the doctors and what the surgeries entail. We set up the patient in a spa resort so they are relaxed and comfortable. And it is all at a fraction of the cost for what you would have to pay here – 90 minutes from Houston by air.”
Because the field is so new, the layers of liability have yet to be tested. There is no legal or overseeing body for “facilitators,” although there are certification standards set by the Medical Tourism Association. Disclaimers and waivers run rife through the contracts with an emphasis on caveat emptor.
“Clients have a choice and we give them plenty of options. But in the end they choose to have the surgery or treatment done at this hospital in this country. We give them the information but they make the choice,” said Marino.
Providers: hospitals and clinics capable of managing anything from capped teeth to new organs, are marketing their specialties to facilitators and insurance companies with trade show fanfare. A walk around the conference floor brings options for IVF fertility treatments with an 85% success rate at a clinic in Barbados for $6,000, or a hospital in India that can perform heart by-pass surgery for $20,000 instead of $120,000. U.S. Insurance companies are checking the possibilities of outsourcing some of these expensive procedures to offshore hospitals to save in the costs of some critical and horrendously expensive procedures. A hospital CEO from Puerto Rico tabs U.S. labor costs as the culprit and claims his hospital, close by and in an American territory with US Board-certified physicians, can offer the surgeries in demand for a tenth of what they would cost on the mainland.
For whatever caveat emptors might be afloat for this concept, initial research might start with the Medical Tourism association in Palm Beach, FLA: (561) 791-2000 or visit www.medicaltourismassociation.com
About the Author
A Quick Tour of Bangkok Hospital Phuket With Toey From Destination Beauty!
