Introduction:
Medical tourism refers to people traveling to country other than their own to receive medical treatment. Medical tourism is something that I personally have mixed feelings for, since if you don’t do thorough research then you could end up getting a botched procedure. It is something that has turned into multibillion dollar industry, and it will only continue to grow. Individuals across the world can engage in medical tourism for any reason, whether it be to obtain better medical service, or find medical services at a cheaper cost. In the medical tourism market, “which represents some 7 million patients worldwide, France hosts less than 10,000 patients” (Desvigne). This is because France has only recently approved of the idea
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Bruce is a construction manager at a company ran by the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe, and needed surgery on his rotator cuff. The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe “health care plan gives employees the option to travel abroad for treatment” which is something that Mr. Ryan chose to take advantage of, instead of going to go a hospital in the San Francisco area. By Mr. Ryan getting his surgery done in Toulouse, France, he did not have to pay anything, and “$7,000 worth of deductibles and copays were waived”; while at the same time The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe save almost $12,000, which is about 35% of what the cost if the shoulder surgery was done in San Francisco (Borba).
Another very popular form of surgery that France is becoming more and more known as time goes on is plastic surgery. Whether it be a face lift or Botox injections, celebrities and wealthy individuals are drawn to France for the many different options.
Marketing Strategies:
France is already one of the top tourist locations in the world, and its “healthcare has been crowned by the World Health Organization as the best in the world” (Huet). With this idea in mind, one would think that the marketing medical tourism in France is very easy, but although Frances medical tourism has its different strengths, it also has a few weaknesses that would shy away many foreign visitors. As I mentioned before, what attracts many people from
The doctor with the highest percentage of denials were actually going to get a bonus.” This shows why having health care controlled by privatized companies is a bad thing, they only care about their profit and not the general well being of their own customers as opposed to having free health care that is run by the government. Shown in “Sicko,” where in Canada, England, France and Cuba have free health care and their citizens are generally happy, versus U.S where there is a price tag on your body. According to Rick, a person who had his fingers sawed off, to reattach his middle finger he needed 60,000 dollars and to reattach the ring finger for 12,000 dollars. This also shows why having privatized companies control health care is a bad thing, because it can lead to your social status determining your health care, which should not be happening.
These major external forces define how organizations interact with customers and respond to competition globally. Jackson is one of many U.S hospitals that have developed a strong external factor in order to remain competitive locally and internationally (About Jackson Health System, 2017, p. 4). According to Medical Tourism Magazine 2012, hospital international programs are great ways to improve and increase profit (Medical Tourism Magazine, 2012, para. 1) in Jackson’s case, developing an international program would focus on improving care and most importantly to achieve the hospital’s ultimate vision (Medical Tourism Magazine, 2012, para. 1). In fact, Jackson’s vision is “to be a nationally and internationally recognized world-class academic medical center and to be the provider of choice” (Vision, 2017, p.1).
The article does a excellent job in comparing today’s health care marketing to the health care marketing about two decades ago. Back in the days, health care organizations were not as inclined towards implementing various marketing strategies as compared to now a day (Quinn, 2008). Also, according to Quinn (2008) even to publish a simple advertisement, the marketing department had to gain approval from all the upper hands from “every physician in that specialty to every administrator on the leadership team”. Eventually, the marketing of health care organizations of today has undergone a significant change where advertisement for one’s products and services has became almost a mandatory procedure. Therefore, there is
The growing number of instances of health conditions that affect one area or country and the evidence that it will affect other countries is based on the idea of interdependence of the human community (Okpala 2014, p. 67). According to Okpala (2014) medical tourism is affecting the health care flow (p. 68). Medical tourism is the event when patients make the decision to seek medical treatment aboard; this process is driven by the consumer and is a
In basic terms, plastic surgery concerns itself with the enhancement or alteration of an individual's body using various surgical procedures. It can be noted that in recent times, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking plastic surgery. In this text, I concern myself with the primary causes of this growing trend.
With the airing of shows such as “Extreme Makeover”, MTV’s “I Want a Famous Face”, and Fox’s show “The Swan”, cosmetic surgery has become a normal part
Hungary attracts a score of medical tourist from across the globe. It has a fantastic feature where your flights, reservations, traveling in the country amongst other things are organized by the hospital you intend to visit. For this reason, medical tourists from mostly Europe and U.S flock the country every summer for
Recently, there has been a large number of Americans flying to India for medical procedures. The practice of traveling abroad to receive both elective and non-elective medical procedures is called medical tourism (Steklof 722). The number of Americans who traveled overseas to receive medical treatment increased from 500,000 in 2005 to 750,000 in 2007 (Steklof 724). Many of these medical tourists are choosing to travel abroad due to rising healthcare costs and the difficulty to retrieve healthcare in a timely manner in his the United States (Maeghani 18).
Medical tourism (also called medical travel, health tourism or global health care) is a term initially coined by travel agencies and themass media to describe the rapidly-growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain health care. Such services typically include elective procedures as well as complex specialized surgeriessuch as joint replacement (knee/hip), cardiac surgery, dental surgery, and cosmetic surgeries. However, virtually every type of health care, including psychiatry, alternative treatments, convalescent care and even burial services are available. As a practical matter, providers and customers commonly use informal channels of communication-connection-contract,
With progressive upgrades in developing countries, medical tourism is becoming a viable option. Unorthodox locations for medical tourism such as Malaysia, Brazil, and India are becoming pioneers in state of the art medical treatments and equipment (Pashley H.S, 2012). For example, Turkey, India, and Singapore hold the most Joint Commission International Accredited hospitals in the world (Pashley H.S, 2012). Visiting developing countries is not only cost efficient, but treatment effective as well; individuals seek medical tourism due to ridiculous wait times and/or very expensive treatment. If an individual were to get a heart bypass surgery in the land of the free, it would cost 80% more than in any developing country($130,000), and a waiting period of 2-10 years depending on emergency (Hodges J.R et al, 2012). Hospital revenue and the economy are major aspects that hospitals and medical tourism operators have to consider and from the profit, India is seeing due to medical tourism is sought worthy; India has anticipated $2 billion industry in 2015 from inbound medical tourism alone (Henderson, 2014). Traveling to foreign countries can deem beneficial for those that are uninsured/underinsured and for those individuals who are not in an urgent emergency or are placed on a long waiting period (Pashley H.S, 2012). In terms of Canadian Medical Tourism, individuals not only receive superior
This report will seek to outline the different marketing strategies recommended to Medibank for the marketing of their travel insurance product.
A growing number of people are discovering the benefits of medical tourism. In the U.S.A and throughout the western world, it is becoming common knowledge that medical tourism offers a cheaper option for receiving medical treatment without compromising on quality1. The costs of medical treatment and state-of-the-art technology are the most important factors for Americans in making a decision to travel abroad for treatment2. The cost-conscious factor and availability of accredited facilities have led to the emergence of several global medical tourism corridors3. Asia leads the medical tourism industry worth billions4. Amongst these corridors of health, India has the second largest number of accredited
C.B. Venkata Krishna Prasad* Traveling abroad for health is not a new phenomenon. Medical tourism is actually thousands of years old. In ancient Greece, pilgrims and patients came from all over the Mediterranean to the sanctuary of the healing god, asklepios; the god of healing was located at Epidaurus. In roman Britain, patients took the waters at a shrine at bath, a practice that continued for 2,000 years. During 18th century wealthy Europeans used to visit health resorts in North Africa. But in the past seven years or so, the movement has accelerated sharply. It is growing rapidly and turning out to be an immense business opportunity for nations which have the strategic advantage of having
This is to certify that the project titled “Emerging Trends in Medical Tourism- A Case Study of Punjab ” is the original work of Ames Gill student of MBA (T&H). This project has been undertaken under the supervision of Dr. Varinder Singh Rana Faculty, School of Hospitality. This project has been submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Master of Business Administration in Tourism & Hospitality from Lovely Professional University.
Health tourism is a boon to any country as it gets revenue and foreign exchange