Medical tourism is a form of health tourism commonly referring to the travel of people to another country for the purpose of obtaining medical treatment in that country. Traditionally, people would travel from less-developed countries to major medical centres in highly developed countries.
In First World countries, like the United States, medical tourism has large growth prospects and potentially destabilizing implications. A forecast by Deloitte Consulting published in August 2008 projected that medical tourism originating in the US could jump by a factor of ten over the next decade.
An estimated 750,000 Americans went abroad for health care in 2007, and the report estimated that 1.5 million would seek health care outside the US in 2008. The growth in medical tourism has the potential to cost US health care providers billions of dollars in lost revenue.
In its bid to lessen the stress of securing medical services abroad and put vital information in the hands of Nigerians seeking treatment abroad, Gapdoc has unveiled Gapdoc.com.
Travcure.com seeks to simplify medical travel by providing all information needed to secure the most efficient and affordable treatment, thereby helping patients to avoid days of research, missed appointment, scam and other frustrations which are very normal when they reach out to multiple hospitals abroad.
CEO of GapDoc, SaurabhMaskara revealed that Gapdoc.com is an internet portal where one can research on various procedures in various parts of the world such as India, Singapore, Thailand, etc.
He noted that in 2014, an estimated 30,000 Nigerians headed abroad for medical tourism, an industry currently clouded by quacks who arrange for appointments to travel, adding that Nigeria paid USD 1 billion in terms of forex for medical tourism last year and it is estimated that about 40 per cent of that goes to India, according to reports by KPMG.
Medical tourism is a term used to describe outflow of patients from one country to another for affordable or faster healthcare.
Saurabh said that over 50 nations including India, Singapore and Malaysia identify medical tourism as national industry.
“Apart from the rich, the poor who cannot afford medical travel are often lucky to have organization and good hearted philanthropists support it. Majority of people travel for four major area namely: Cardiology, orthopaedic, renal dialysis issue and cancer.
“India issues M type visa for medical tourism where most Nigerian head for affordable high quality health care. Many Indian hospital chains are in the process of opening up hospitals in Nigeria.
“India requires you to have Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) certificate along with yellow fever certificate, except for infants below the age of six for traveling to India.
“High quality hospitals in India such as Arthimis, Max, Primus etc offer heart bypass for as low as$ 7000 compared to $ 130,000 in the United States and $ 40,900 in UAE. Lot of them provide cashless services to policyholders of insurance Aetna Global Service, International BUPA,CIGNA International, International SOS, GSG/ Tiecare International.
“Companies in the Unites States often incentivise employees to travel abroad for medical treatment to bring down their operating costs. Lot of these people are traveling eastwards toAsian destination.”
Saurabh explains that Gapdoc.com seeks to remove the current non transparency which exists in the system.
“Medical tourism operates like travel industry did 20 years ago”, he adds and Gapdoc.com is trying to fix this problem by partnering JCI accredited hospitals and allowing patients to communicate with hospitals directly.
Referances:
http://businessdayonline.com/2015/09/nigerians-to-enjoy-simplified-medical-travel/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/medical-tourism-in-india
