Medical Tourism

Medical Tourism or Healthcare tourism , also sometimes called as Surgical tourism is the phenomenon of people travelling outside their country for medical treatment. Traditionally people travelled from less developed countries to more developed countries for better medical facilities, whereas the latest trend is opposite. Nowadays, people from developed countries travel to developing countries for medical treatment. This is because of the low cost of medical treatment in developing countries, though the traditional phenomenon also continues simultaneously. Medical travel is global medical tourism now, making medical tourism industry a multi-billion industry now.

There are many factors that lead people to opt for medical travel. Few important of them are:

• Affordable cost of treatment overseas
• Lack of facilities/ skilled doctors in home country
• Long waiting time for treatment in home country
• Some treatments like fertility may not be legal in home country
• Privacy and confidentiality of the procedure is maintained such as in Cosmetic surgery

India

India offers a great value to medical tourists from across the world. The cost of medical treatment in India is much affordable, hospitals are at par with the best hospitals in the world, surgeons and doctors are well trained and are equally or more experienced than their Western counterparts, have American or UK board certifications, language is not a barrier and there is absolutely no waiting time. India also offers unconventional treatments and rejuvenation options like Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy which no other country has to offer.

Medical tourism statistics are a testimony to the fact that India is regarded as one of the best medical tourism destinations. More than 150,000 Americans travel to India for affordable medical treatment every year. While the figures are just for conventional Western system of medicine, the number of people coming to India for healthcare tourism or wellness tourism is much more. Besides medical and wellness tourism, dental tourism to India is a multi billion industry. The cost of dental treatment in Western countries is prohibitive, which works as an advantage for India, India having a vast pool of dental surgeons offering dental treatment at much affordable cost. It is estimated thatdental tourism contributes to a fifth of global medical tourism.