Medical Tourism and Healthcare

Many hospitals and clinics will use a smile, “customer service” and good intentions to hide the fact they have poor or no training in service and professional staff about the different care that medical tourists or expat local patients need.

They often turn to “customer service” agents who offer medical tourists a welcoming smile, an airport pick up, an international menu selection in place of services related to treatment quality, patient safety, transparency, cost containment and other unique differences in treating and caring for travelling international patients, or medical tourists.

At the heart of appropriate care for medical travellers is a need for institutional awareness of the unique differences between local patients and medical tourists. Having a better understanding of what medical tourists, their care managers and home-based doctors expect from the receiving hospital or clinic at the medical destination will lead to a better quality of patient care for medical travellers.