GLOBAL: Third edition of Patients Beyond Borders Mon, 14 Jul 2014 11:15:29 GMTHealthy Travel Media, publishers of ’Patients Beyond Borders’ have released an up dated and expanded third edition of the consumer guide to medical tourism and international health travel. This print and ebook offers health travellers information to help make decisions about traveling abroad for healthcare. The publisher claims that more than a million US patients will cross borders for medical care in 2014; nearly double the number in 2011. Both figures have to be questioned due to the lack of supporting data; there were no published figures for outbound US medical travel in 2011, there are none now, and analysts suggest that both figures are a huge exaggeration. The risk is that these figures will be used and re-used in future years by commentators and the media as “internet facts”. Patients Beyond Borders author Josef Woodman says, "Worldwide, millions of patients young and old are without access to quality, affordable medical care, often one diagnosis away from financial ruin." Patients Beyond Borders lists hundreds of international hospitals and clinics, providing healthcare consumers a wide range of affordable medical tourism options for quality care that did not exist just ten years ago. The book claims that overseas costs savings of 40% to 85% compared to US medical costs are common in more than 20 leading medical destinations around the world. But the publishers do not state where this information comes from. Patients Beyond Borders is available in print and...

EUROPE: EU citizens - satisfaction with quality of healthcare Tue, 15 Jul 2014 09:23:46 GMTWith Europeans being a target market for medical tourism it is important to note that most are actually content with their local healthcare providers, but while some countries are very happy, others are not at all content. The latest Eurobarometer survey ’Patient safety and quality of care’ on patient quality of care was conducted in all 28 EU countries. Overall, Europeans are happy with the quality of their healthcare, although with big differences between countries. 70% are satisfied with the overall quality of the healthcare in their home country. While almost all in Belgium (97%), Austria (96%), Malta and Finland (both 94%) say that the overall healthcare quality in their country is good, only 25% in Romania and 26 % in Greece say the same. The eurozone debt crisis has forced some governments to drastically cut public health budgets in an effort to contain deficits, with Greece being one of the countries taking the toughest measures. But despite the crisis, in some countries, citizens are becoming happier about the quality of healthcare they receive. Since the last Eurobarometer survey in 2009, there have been some big shifts in opinions, including in Lithuania, where 40% said the overall quality of healthcare in their country was good compared to 65% now. In Hungary, Portugal and Malta they are now considerably more likely to be positive about the overall quality of healthcare in their respective countries. When asked to...

UK: Rise of butt implants increases cosmetic surgery tourism Wed, 23 Jul 2014 14:54:00 GMTResearch by WhatClinic says that butt implants, also called buttock augmentation, rose by 484% in the past two years, and involves silicon implants similar to breast implants being inserted into each buttock to give a fuller, rounder posterior. Women want to look like Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue, Cheryl Cole, Kim Kardashian or Pippa Middleton. This procedure is not cheap at a price tag of £4,229 in the UK. So Central and Eastern Europe see patients travelling to these destinations to pay half what they would in the UK. On WhatClinic, Turkey has seen the most enquiries for butt lifts, implants and reductions, followed by Poland and the Czech Republic. Short flights and cheap air travel make these destinations popular with the British. In Turkey, a butt lift will cost £2,118, while butt implants cost £2,393. Poland is the cheapest destination for butt lifts at £2,103 and the Czech Republic for butt implants at £2,117. 2013 cosmetic surgery statistics just from clinic comparison site WhatClinic users says arm lifts increased by 473% as women waved goodbye to bingo wings. Prices in the UK average £3,872. One of the more unusual procedures trending in 2013 was buffalo hump removal that had no interest in 2012, but saw a 350% increase in 2013.This surgery removes the fatty build –up at the base of the neck caused by excessive weight gain. Although still not widely available in the UK, demand...

CANADA: Nursing association calls for ban on inbound medical tourism Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:24:10 GMTEnsuring Ontario’s health system remains strong means Ontario’s Liberal government must immediately ban medical tourism says the province’s top professional nursing association in an open letter. The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) condemns the increasing practice of Toronto hospitals attracting medical tourists from abroad. The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario is the professional association representing registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and students in Ontario In an open letter the RNAO argues that it is now is the perfect time to reaffirm that Ontario’s publicly funded health system needs to be protected and strengthened: “Our treasured health system is under attack by those who seek profit making opportunities from the provision of health services. The tragedy is that now, the enemy is from within. Experiments with medical tourism are underway by hospitals in Toronto that are soliciting pay-for-treatment patients from abroad. These experiments are eroding the quality and accessibility of health services for all Ontarians.” There has always been a strong health lobby in Canada that opposes both inbound and outbound medical tourism, but this is the first time that an entire professional body has asked for a complete and immediate ban. Read More >>

GLOBAL: New report: Medical tourism agencies in urgent need of international regulation Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:30:01 GMTMedical tourism agencies are crucial connectors between foreign patients and host countries. They help patients navigate countries, doctors and specialties. But little attention has been paid to the authenticity of information displayed on their websites and whether they follow ethical guidelines and standards. Agents must be educated about the ethical aspects of patient care, prevented from exploiting patients or clients, and made to respect their privacy and confidentiality. They must be subject to regulation at the international level by an organisation that has the power to enforce its decisions. It is equally important to assess consumers’ perceptions and educate them on the information displayed on web portals and its implications. Ethical guidelines must also be established and followed if these companies are to build the trust and reliance of patients. These are the conclusions of Suchitra Wagle, a research scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, who analyzed the websites of 200 medical tourism agents and published the results in an Indian Journal of Medical Ethics report “Web-based medical facilitators in medical tourism: the third party in decision-making” The emergence of web-based medical tourism agents has added a new dimension to the phenomenon of cross-border travel. They help patients navigate countries, doctors and specialties. However, little attention has been paid to the authenticity of information displayed on the facilitators’ web portals, and whether they follow ethical guidelines and standards. The research analyses...

UK: Patients benefit from reverse medical tourism Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:35:06 GMTWhen there are a substantial number of people from one country or group of countries, rather than them going overseas to get treatment, dentists and others have been setting up clinics in the UK to target that market. This has happened to Hungarian dental clinics, and all types of clinics for Poles. These clinics may start off as targeting one nationality but soon their fame as low cost but efficient and friendly clinics means they get people of all nationalities. Some Hungarian dentists and businessmen realized that patients are reluctant to travel for medical treatment, especially if they had not yet met their dentist. Rather than waiting for patients to come to them they decided to go to the patients and set up clinics in the UK. Vital Europe were one of the first clinics to offer treatment in the UK and Hungary and say that people are a lot more likely to travel if they can have a consultation carried out at home. These clinics give patients the option to have treatment in the UK, in Hungary or a combination of both. Since 2007, private Polish medical clinics have sprung up all over the UK; there are at least 20 in London, they exist in Manchester, Reading, Bristol and Glasgow. Wherever there is a Polish community, there is a private clinic. My Medyk was launched in 2008 and has doctors split across the sites at Ealing Broadway...

MEXICO: New medical tourism hospital in Puerto Peñasc Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:44:50 GMTSandy Beach Medical Center and US hospital group AMERIMED have joined forces to build a full service medical tourism hospital in Puerto Peñasc. Puerto Peñasco is a city in the Northwest of the Mexican state of Sonora, 100 km from the border with the US state of Arizona. The location joins the peninsula of Baja with the rest of Mexico. The area is part of the Altar Desert and since the 1990s there has been a push to develop the area for tourism, as it is heavily visited by people from Arizona and California. Puerto Peñasco is often called Rocky Point in English, and has been nicknamed “Arizona’s beach” as it is the coast closest to the major cities of Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma, and many Arizonans spend weekends there. In 2009 Dr. Jesús González-Gaytán opened his clinic in Rocky Point. Sandy Beach Medical Center offers services to locals, expatriates and medical tourists from the USA. Dr. González sees the potential of Puerto Peñasco for tourism. He is now medical director of the new Hospital AMERIMED Puerto Peñasco. With four hospitals located in Cabo San Lucas, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and San José del Cabo AMERIMED is used to running medical tourism hospitals with bi-lingual staffs, U.S. trained, certified and/or educated and licensed doctors and nurses, state of the art diagnostics equipment and a corporate core commitment to the medical tourism industry. Read More >>

TAIWAN: New medical tourism service offers aerial tours of Taiwan Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:48:21 GMTA Taipei-based healthcare company has launched a partnership with Aerospace Industrial Development in Taiwan, to offer new medical tourism services that include aerial tours in a small seven-seat plane. Show 101 Royal Health Care, part of the Show Chwan Health Care System, has developed the tour package for international travellers, business travellers and retirees who can enjoy relaxing trips provided by AIDC’s flight service after they have used Show 101 facilities for a physical check-up or cosmetic beauty treatment. It is not suitable for people who have had medical, dental or serious cosmetic surgery. The company is targeting customers from Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. Show Chwan Health Care System has several hospitals in Taiwan. A healthcare coordinator accompanies passengers to ensure they are in good enough physical condition to fly safely. AIDC pilots provide guided tours either in Chinese or English and customers have three options to choose from: north line, south line and round-island line, it said. The tours allow passengers to view landmark buildings and popular tourist attractions from on high with breathtaking aerial views of Taiwan. Read More >>

QATAR: Compulsory health insurance for all visitors to Qatar Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:55:30 GMTAll visitors to Qatar are now required to buy health insurance from Seha for the duration of their stay in the country as part of their visa and entry formalities. The national insurance scheme now covers all Qataris in the country, and has been extended to include eye care and dental treatment. Next year the plan will be completed as compulsory insurance extends to all expatriate workers too. The quick extension of this free complex healthcare service may mean that the number of Qataris seeking treatment overseas will drop rapidly as why pay for medical care that you can get for free at home? The National Health Insurance Company (NHIC) has launched a nationwide road show to increase awareness about the Seha, the national health insurance scheme to ensure Qatari nationals everywhere are familiar with its benefits. Specifically targeted at areas outside the capital city, the road show aims at giving residents an opportunity to interact with Seha teams and learn to access healthcare services under the scheme. “As a national initiative, it is important for Seha to reach out to all Qatari nationals wherever they live and to ensure the public not only knows about the health insurance scheme but also how to use it,” explains Dr Faleh Mohamed Hussain Ali of NHIC. Qatari nationals can also access information and updates about the scheme and the Seha provider network online, from a call centre and...

CANADA: SFU medical tourism research featured in award-winning radio series Wed, 23 Jul 2014 16:04:05 GMTValorie Crooks at Simon Fraser University in Canada was thrilled to hear that CBC radio reporter Debbie Wilson won a major national award for a three-part series on medical tourism. Wilson’s one-year investigation into the impact of medical tourism on Canadian consumers drew on research and information from SFU’s Medical Tourism Research Group, headed by Crooks. The series won the 2014 Dave Rogers, Association of Electronic Journalists (RTNDA) long feature award. The series highlighted the SFU group’s analysis of how medical tourism can prey on Canadians desperately seeking quick and economical quality-of-life operations such as hip replacements in foreign countries. In British Colombia patients can wait years for such an operation. Valerie Crooks says, “Debbie reviewed all of our published work for her stories. She was particularly interested in a Canadian Institutes for Health Research funded study my team led that examined Canadians’ decision-making around going abroad for medical tourism and another study examining the health equity impacts of medical tourism. Her interest in the research also shows that people outside the research community care about the group’s findings. The radio stories have had a direct impact on getting Canadians talking about medical tourism. This type of media coverage is incredibly important as it gets people thinking about why everyone needs to care about medical tourism and the complex ways in which this global practice is impacting so many Canadians in direct and indirect ways.”...

UK and USA: Cinderella surgery and vampire facials Mon, 28 Jul 2014 14:26:48 GMTMedical tourism needs to understand that there are trends in cosmetic surgery that it must keep up with to compete. And new trends are often how domestic cosmetic surgery businesses fight off the potential of medical tourism. The latest two are Vampire facials and Cinderella surgery. Cosmetic surgery specialist lawyer Amy Milner of Penningtons Manches explains the Vampire facial – the latest blood curdling anti-ageing beauty treatment that is rapidly gaining popularity. Since Kim Kardashian underwent the procedure on her reality television programme in 2013, there has been an 800% increase in demand. “The Vampire facial is a treatment where a doctor uses a patient’s own blood to give the skin a more youthful appearance. The procedure itself is said to stimulate collagen and elastin as well as to enhance skin colour, texture and make fine lines and wrinkles look less noticeable. The surgeon who carries out the procedure will make small puncture wounds on the face and will apply the patient’s own blood. This is not a procedure for the faint hearted, as the puncture wounds on the face are clearly visible following the procedure. However, the results can be noticed immediately with the full results becoming apparent within a matter of weeks. The procedure can be quite painful, particularly when the surgeon is making the puncture wounds and a patient may experience some bruising. The cost of one treatment is around £538.The procedure is considered...

MALAYSIA: Medical tourism agents should become patient navigators Thu, 07 Aug 2014 11:21:49 GMTMeghann Ormond of Wageningen University has presented an academic paper, on Academia.edu:“Intermediaries, facilitators, agents, guides: Steering international medical travel to Malaysia” and presented it at the World Congress of Sociology in Yokohama in July. The thesis is that Malaysian authorities desire for medical tourists from higher-income countries and the medical tourism infrastructure being developed to cater to them exists in contrast to the actual everyday flows of intra-regional lower-income medical tourists and what people actually want and get. Key points from the paper: “Medical tourists going to Malaysia for non-invasive procedures or cosmetic surgery are more likely to undergo procedures or consultations at the same time as their accompanying family members or friends. Medical tourism agents have a responsibility to provide practical local help for solo who undergo major surgery and may be dependent for long periods. The practice of organizing opportunities for customers to meet and support one another may not be as good as an agent taking patient-clients out for meals and drinks. Some agents ensure that clients have Skype-enabled devices and mobile phones at their disposal to easily reach family and friends back home. Most commonly, they either provide personal service or support from paid destination managers who are similar to travel reps. In spite of the dominant role of Malaysia’s Ministry of Health in the promotion of medical travel, one Australia based agent commented; “They do not properly stress the seriousness of what...

CANADA: Academics urge Canadians to consider risks of medical tourism Thu, 07 Aug 2014 11:25:32 GMTA new website from Canadian academics specializing in medical tourism research warns potential Canadian medical tourists to carefully consider the risks and rewards of medical tourism. SFU’s Medical Tourism Research Group has launched a free consumer website Medicaltourismandme.com, just for Canadians. It uses the power of personal testimony to educate consumers about the perils and pluses of medical tourism. The website presents former medical tourists’ stories under three headings — your health, your home and your destination. The headings represent three perspectives from which SFU’s researchers want consumers to evaluate the practical and ethical concerns associated with medical tourism. The stories profile consumers weighing medical pros and cons; home countries saddled with returning medical tourists who may now have more medical problems than they left with; and medical-tourism-providing countries’ residents whose health care needs can be subjugated by the needs of wealthier medical tourists. Prompted by concerns from customers, doctors and academics about issues such as malpractice in destination countries and inadequate consumer guidelines, Jeremy Snyder and his colleagues created an information sheet. It is the basis of their website. They plan to have their website translated into French and Spanish. Jeremy Snyder at Simon Fraser University explains, “We have drawn on real stories from medical tourists to whom we have spoken, in the hopes that these real experiences will be eye-opening for people thinking about engaging in medical tourism. Historically, government and industry sources...

EUROPE: Cross border healthcare expands to other countries Thu, 07 Aug 2014 11:29:54 GMTThe European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the European Union (EU) have incorporated 26 EU legal acts into the European Economic Area Agreement, including measures relating to cross-border healthcare The EFTA member states, which are part of the EEA but outside the EU, are Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is particularly important as in this tiny country most people have to go to nearby EU countries for medical care. The EU Directive on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare provides clarity about the rights of patients who seek healthcare in another EEA country. The new rules clarify that the citizens of one EEA Member State can be reimbursed for healthcare received in another member state, as long as the type of treatment and costs would have been covered in their own country. Many but not all EU countries have fully implemented the rules. Authorities may require patients to seek prior authorization for treatment requiring an overnight hospital stay or highly specialized and cost-intensive healthcare, although refusals will need to be justified according to a restricted list of possible reasons. Read More >>

USA: Millions more Americans now have health insurance Thu, 07 Aug 2014 11:34:18 GMTThe uninsured rate in the U.S. fell to 13.4% in the second quarter of 2014. This is the lowest quarterly average recorded since Gallup and Healthways began tracking the percentage of uninsured Americans in 2008. The previous low point was 14.4% in the third quarter of 2008. The figures do not yet show the full impact of stage one of Obamacare and raise questions about estimates of large numbers of uninsured Americans who could be a target for medical tourism. The uninsured rate has decreased sharply since the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for most Americans to have health insurance went into effect at the beginning of 2014. The uninsured rate has dropped by 3.7 points since the fourth quarter of 2013, when it averaged 17.1%. The decline in the uninsured rate last quarter took place at the start of the quarter. The drop reflected a surge of health plan enrollees in early April, prior to the April 15 extended enrollment deadline for people who had previously experienced technical difficulties with the federal healthcare exchange website. The second-quarter results are based on more than 45,000 interviews with U.S. adults from April 1 to June 30, 2014, as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Gallup’s quarterly trends show that the uninsured rate dropped by about three points from the fourth quarter of 2013 among each major age group under 65. The uninsured rate in the second quarter averaged 18.7%...