Medical Travel: Answers to Your Clients’ Questions

This is the first in a series of guest columns from the president of Companion Global Healthcare.

By now, many Americans and Canadians have at least heard of “medical tourism” or “medical travel,” a trend that really started to take off in about 2006.

Historically, most U.S. consumers who traveled abroad for medical care sought safety, service and savings, while most Canadians have traveled internationally to avoid patient queues.

Now, with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, U.S. consumers face the possibility of long wait times and escalating prices; as a result, we expect medical travel traffic to be brisk in 2014.

Even travel agents who don’t choose to specialize in medical travel will have clients who are traveling for medical reasons or interested in doing so. In the interests of customer service, travel professionals need to be prepared to field their questions.

Here are answers to common concerns or hesitations about medical travel.

I’ve always believed that the U.S. has the best medical care in the world. Is medical care outside of North America safe?

Medical and hospital care outside the U.S. and Canada has improved significantly and at lightning speed. In 2006, just 80 hospitals outside of the U.S. were accredited by the Joint Commission, the Chicago-based nonprofit that certifies medical facilities both domestically and overseas. Today, more than 400 facilities outside of North America are accredited by the Joint Commission.

How do I select a surgeon and hospital?
We recommend to medical travelers – and to travel agents – that they pre-select a facilitator partner who specializes in medical travel. Most likely, the medical travel facilitator will not recommend a specific hospital or physician; they will give the consumer several to choose from.  

Competent medical travel facilitators conduct onsite visits to all the hospitals in their network  and only work with facilities that have been accredited by the Joint Commission. Ethical facilitators also do not receive compensation from hospitals in exchange for referrals.

What kind of creature comforts do overseas hospitals provide?
International hospitals that are serious about attracting patients from other countries have this nailed.

For example, patient travelers will be met – at the end of the jet ramp in Thailand and in the luggage area in Costa Rica – by hospital staff eager to make an excellent first impression. The serious players provide Western cuisine, free wi-fi, English-speaking nurses during evening hours and Anglophone TV stations, such as Fox News, HBO, ESPN, CNBC, etc.

What if something goes wrong and my trip needs to be delayed in, say, Barcelona, Spain?
Companion Global Healthcare requires all travelers to purchase a non-fault medical malpractice policy, like the low cost ones available from GlobalProtectiveSolutions.com. Depending upon the amount of protection purchased, this can cover several additional days in a faraway hospital, airline change fees, etc. Other facilitators may or may not recommend similar coverage.

Unfortunately, this type of coverage is not available locally for care received in the U.S. but it is available for Canadians and others visiting the U.S. for medical care.

I’ve heard that my local physician will refuse to see me when I return home. Is that true?
Companion Global Healthcare has been in business since 2006 and has not once had this problem with travelers returning to the U.S. or Canada.

We do require that clients seeking care abroad ask the question of their primary physician – “Will you see me when I return from Doctors Hospital in the Bahamas if I have post-surgical issues?” – preferably before purchasing airline tickets.

Next time: Answers to travel agents’ top questions about medical tourism.

David Boucher is president and chief operating officer of Companion Global Healthcare, a medical travel facilitation and HR benefits consultancy. (Disclosure: Companion Global Healthcare is a partner to Well-Being Travel, a sister company to Travel Market Report.) Earlier in David’s career, he was a hospital CEO and worked for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina.