How to Ensure Safe Medical Tourism

How to Ensure Safe Medical Tourism

The booming industry of medical tourism is mostly driven by individuals seeking established and proven treatments that cost much less than in their home country. The opportunity to undergo world class medical and health care treatment and services plus relaxing vacationing opportunities is quite irresistible to underinsured patients. However, there is always the question about how safe medical tourism is.

Medical tourism facilitators promote safe medical tourism by earning and gaining proof of qualifications, experience and accreditations from the world’s leaders in health care technology, practice and services. However, many countries offering medical tourism packages do not have specific national standards and systems for collecting comparative clinical outcome data as well as independent reviews and analysis. Even with international accreditation such as JCI, there is no absolute guarantee on the quality and assessment of the successes of treatments. Hence, one way of ensuring safe medical tourism is by seeking areas who have successfully managed to establish solid reputation o medical travel as in dental treatment and cosmetic surgery.

Perhaps you should take time assessing the accreditation, expertise and experiences of the hospitals and doctors marketed by a country’s medical tourism program. Take time to browse the resume of the participating doctors and take note o their affiliations with important associations. For hospitals, take note of their insurers to ensure that the institution as well as its medical staff meets all the legal, technical and sanitary requirements in practicing medicine and providing health care. Also, certifications that prove that a medical institution’s premises have duly certified facilities authorized by competent departments should convince potential medical tourists of their world class and quality medical services.

Safe medical tourism, Downtown San Diego from Coronado Island—Ken Lund (Flickr.com)

Reading some testimonials from patients around the world proves to be useful in deciding whether or not a medical and vacationing package is safe. Organizations that promote safe medical tourism operate websites that publish the testimonials of previous patients as well as their contact information, which may be provided upon request. The website also allows direct consultation with people considered as valuable reference and strong guarantee to the respect of safe medical tourismin that particular country. This way, you can contact people who have undergone the medical procedure or treatment that you plan on having. This should help set your mind at ease about the risks that that particular procedure may offer.

In rare cases, traveling patients go to other countries for unproven and experimental treatment. The questions on how safe medical tourism is regarding experimental treatment and other treatment procedures that are only available overseas and is not yet approved in their home country is currently a pressing issue. Most doctors advice their patients to refrain from undergoing unproven and experimental procedures as the procedure is still in the stage of being studied, evaluated and understood. Although there are already success stories regarding new and experimental treatments, people need to make sure that the procedure must be done by a group with a program, proper specialists and conservative regimen to minimize health risks.
Hence, the answer on how safe medical tourism is depends on which country and which participating hospitals, doctors and specialists are involved. Although this treatment opportunity is much cheaper, the lower cost does not necessarily mean low standard or quality of service. The program usually markets the country’s finest hospitals and doctors.

How to Ensure Safe Medical Tourism

News:

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