What is the right number of medical tourists from U.S.A? What is the future of Medical Tourism? This is a billion dollar questions indeed.

When ever, a number pops up like millions from U.S.A taking advantage of cheaper health care in other countries, it obviously raises many doubts. Is medical tourism as big as consulting companies Deloitte & Touche projects to be?

In this article let us discuss the medical tourism numbers and medical tourism trends in general.

Only 20% of Americans or about 70 millions have passports as of last year, this number went up substantially in past few years as now Americans need passport to go to Canada, Mexico unlike before. One of the articles published last year suggested that nearly 6 million people visited foreign countries to get treatment. This number does not seem to be right as it means that at least 10 % of those who are eligible to travel went abroad to get just medical/dental procedures done.

In a report on CNN last year Dr.Sanjay Gupta reported that at least 600,000 Americans just go to India for a surgery. According to Indian Tourism Department every year, 5 million foreigners visit India, a break down of these tourists by country could not be found at this time. Now the question is among these 5 million visitors, even if by most generous estimation 2.5 million or 50% of entire visitors could be from U.S.A and do 25% of these travelers just travel to get a procedure done?

Undoubtedly, Medical Tourism is growing in popularity and medical tourism always has been an option and it will be. Now the question is, who all are traveling to get a surgery abroad and how big is this industry.

When it comes to life saving surgeries, in the opinion of this author patients traveling to get treatment because of lack of facilities at home or because of better quality health care outnumber those traveling just for cost reasons. For example, patients from African nations travel to India.

Orthopedic Surgeries like Knee replacement, Hip Replacement, Elective Surgeries/Procedures like nose job, breast augmentation and treatments not available like stem cell therapy are most favored by medical tourists from developed countries. Thailand is the leader in attracting most patients for cosmetic procedures and India leads in Orthopedic surgeries.

Dental tourism, Lasik eye surgery are favored by the leisure travelers, who may want to take advantage of less expensive treatment in a world class facility when they are on vacation.

In the near future, medical tourism will be favored by the diaspora from countries like India, Mexico as they understand the local conditions better than some one just traveling to get treatment.

Relevant links

6 million people travel abroad to get medical treatment

A first hand dental tourism experience

Medical Tourism – Things to Consider