Medical Tourism

Medical tourism, or medical travel, is the act of traveling to other countries to obtain medical, dental, preventive and surgical care. With the rising costs of healthcare in the U.S., many people are not able to afford health insurance and cannot receive treatment for necessary or elective procedures. Traveling abroad for medical procedures costs (on average) 60-80% less than the same procedure in the U.S. and includes the leisurely aspect of traveling in the foreign country. Medical travel has proven to be the most cost-effective solution for medical procedures and has been a growing at an unprecedented rate for several years. More and more people are realizing the full benefits of medical travel: highest quality care, preferential hospital treatment, and relaxing travel.

In the United States, health care is very expensive, with millions of Americans being either uninsured or underinsured. Over 40 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and an estimated 120 million Americans live without any form of dental insurance. In Canada, health care sometimes requires long waiting times, which leads to unnecessary frustration and disabilities. As a result, many people throughout the world are turning abroad to find solutions to their health care needs. The appeal of this phenomenon is driven by cost savings as high as 80%, depending on the procedure and the country in which it is performed, with virtually no wait times.

Medical tourism is not a new phenomenon. For years, savvy travelers have gone abroad to a select group of medical centers around the globe for medical, dental and cosmetic surgery procedures, seeking and finding significant cost savings without sacrificing quality of care. For more information go to Vacation, Adventure And Surgery? CBS News: 60 Minutes, 2005.

GlobalMedTravel is leading the effort in medical travel and has facilitated many successful customer visits abroad.