Roadblocks In Review: Problems With The Market For Medical Tourism

Of all the ongoing trends in modern medicine, few have more potential than the rise of medical tourism. Rather than relying on what’s available in their home countries, patients are increasingly traveling abroad for their healthcare. Like all international trade, this puts downward pressure on prices while helping consumers get the best possible treatments. In this way, medical tourism can create value for everyone involved.

For all the benefits of medical tourism, this market is not without its problems. Patients who travel abroad face a number of unique risks and challenges, while providers have trouble reaching out to those patients in the first place. While these problems can be partially solved with the help of intermediate agents, agents create issues of their own, especially if they lack the skills and integrity to do their jobs effectively. For the medical tourism market to reach its full potential, it must develop new ways of informing patients and connecting them with providers at minimal risk.

Problems for Providers & Patients

Patients and providers who want to participate in medical tourism each face a host of problems that either prevent them from doing so it make it unsafe. These include:

• Inconsistent Quality- Different countries have different standards for how to become a physician, how clean hospitals must be, how pharmaceuticals are distributed and used, and other variables that affect the quality and safety of care. Patients need to be aware of these differences to decide if it’s safe for them to get care in another country, but if they’re not medical experts, it’s hard for them to do so. Likewise, providers may not know enough about healthcare standards in patients’ home countries to explain the difference. This can lead to miscommunication that threatens patients’ health and physicians’ reputations.
• Epidemiological Differences- Even in two countries with comparable healthcare quality, different diseases abound. Patients from one country may not be immune to diseases in another, increasing the risk that they will suffer complications during a procedure. Providers need to take special precautions for this, but that’s hard to do if they aren’t familiar with conditions in the patient’s home country.
• Barriers to Communication- Due to differences in language, cultural taboos, and other factors that affect communication, patients and providers may have trouble conversing with one another about care. This makes it harder for patients to tell ahead of time whether a particular provider can administer the treatments they need. It also prevents providers from getting information on patients that is essential for treating them effectively.
• Lack of Advertising- Most providers do not know how to promote themselves or protect their reputations on an international scale. As a result, they have trouble reaching out to foreign patients or convincing them that they are the right choice for their care. Not only is this bad for providers, but it limits patients’ options. If a patient only knows of one medical facility or provider in the country they’re visiting, it’s hard for them to explore other options and find the source that can best meet their needs.
• Reservation Issues- Medical institutions use different methods to take reservations in different countries. This makes it harder for patients to make appointments ahead of time, increasing the risk that they will arrive in another country but be unable to get care.

As the medical tourism industry grows, these problems will grow with it. Patients are likely to begin seeking care in a wider range of countries, raising the potential for communication, reservation, and safety issues. Likewise, as providers serve patients from a growing array of backgrounds, they’ll likely have trouble keeping their unique communication and treatment needs straight.

An Incomplete Solution in Agents

In response to these problems, independent agents have arisen to facilitate medical tourism. These agents specialize in connecting patients to providers across international lines, making sure both parties know everything they need for effective care, and facilitating communication between the two. Patients and providers don’t have to handle these problems alone, making it safer and easier for them to participate in medical tourism.

But as valuable as agents’ services are, they’ve created a host of new problems. Given their unique position in the medical tourism process, agents have a lot of power over both physicians and providers, and most governments do little to regulate how they use this power. As a result, there is a high potential for:

• Fraud- Not all agents care about the wellbeing of their clients, and don’t think twice before scamming them. Some directly defraud consumers by charging them for sham services. Other unscrupulous agents do connect patients with real providers, but charge them fees that they claim will contribute to the overall cost of their care; patients don’t realize until too late that the agent just pocketed their payments.
• Incompetence- Even well-intentioned agents may lack the expertise to connect providers and patients or prepare them for the complications that can arise. Because there are so few regulations on medical tourism agents, it’s hard to make sure the intermediary you use is actually qualified.
• Insolvency- An agent may be good at their job but bad at handling money. If your agent goes bankrupt after you’ve paid but before you receive care, you may get nothing for your payment.
• Exaggeration- Some agents make exaggerated claims about the quality of their services. For example, they may say they’ll connect you with the best providers in a given country, but end up just recommending the one who charges the lowest prices.

Medipedia is developing a blockchain-based alternative to medical tourism agents in an effort to make the entire process faster, safer, and easier. For more information about how our blockchain solutions will help solve the biggest problems with medical tourism, read our next blog.

For more information on our efforts and the broader medical tourism landscape, visit our website today.