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Treatment abroad : United States
Thousands of tourists visit the USA every year to see its many historic landmarks, cities, entertainment parks, and natural attractions. Significant attractions include Mount Rushmore, Times Square, the city of Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, and The Hoover Dam. Times Square in Manhattan, New York City, attracts approximately 35 million visitors yearly.
The United States of America has some of the leading surgeons and hospitals in the world, in the areas of cancer/oncology, Orthopedics, cardiovascular surgery, and cosmetic surgery. There has been a growing interesting in inbound medical tourism in the USA in recent years.
Why consider USA for medical tourism?
Perhaps the biggest attraction of the USA as a medical tourism destination is our familiarity with the language and culture. American culture will feel very familiar to most Britons, as we are regularly exposed to it on TV and in films. These do tend to concentrate on the big USA cities and rarely reflect the small-town life that makes up the vast majority of so called ‘middle America’. Nonetheless, British travellers will feel at home with the language and way of life in the USA far more than they would in many medical tourism destinations.
The USA is easy to reach, with a huge choice of flights from most UK airports, and easy to get around once you are there. British medical tourists often receive a particularly warm welcome, thanks to the ‘special relationship’ between our two countries and the American fascination with all things British, from the monarchy to our ‘quaint’ social traditions.
Another big attraction of the USA for tourists is the availability of new and cutting edge treatments. The USA is a highly advanced nation with a culture that fosters progress, research and discovery. For this reason, the USA leads the world in medical treatments, with new and advanced techniques, drugs and procedures often available there before they are available anywhere else. So while an estimated 750,000 Americans a year leave the USA to seek cut-price treatment overseas in countries such as Mexico, up to 85,000 overseas travellers make the opposite journey, coming to the USA for treatment they simply can’t find at home.
Due to its elite nature, medical tourism in the USA tends to focus on the top of the range hospitals and clinics, and naturally these tend to be located in the major cities such as Los Angeles and New York. This makes it easy to combine the healthcare element of your trip with the opportunity to do some sight-seeing and take in the wealth of shopping, shows and other attractions that these cities have to offer.
The benefits offered by state-of-the-art healthcare in the USA and the opportunities for a holiday of a lifetime can make the USA a perfect medical tourism destination.
Healthcare system and facilities in USA.
Healthcare in the USA has always been a controversial subject, and this controversy has reached a peak in recent years with Barack Obama’s Healthcare reforms.
The USA has no state provided healthcare system like the NHS, but rather each individual, or their employer, is expected to take out health insurance to pay for their care. There is assistance for the underprivileged and those on low incomes, called Medicaid, but this has proved to be a less than satisfactory system. The new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts, finally pushed through the American legislature in 2010, aims to make healthcare available to all, and to help over 50 million Americans who don’t have, or can’t afford health insurance, to get the cover they need at a price they can afford.
Unlike most medical tourism destinations, where patients are attracted by low prices, private healthcare in the USA is relatively expensive, and when combined with the cost of travel and accommodation, may actually be considerably more expensive. This is why three quarters of a million Americans travel abroad for healthcare every year.
However, the USA can offer the medical tourist the cutting edge treatments that may not be available elsewhere. High quality training and investment produces world leaders in the fields of cardiovascular surgery, neurology and oncology, who are able to offer life saving treatments that make the costs worth every penny.
In a recent report by McKinsey & Co., it was found that of the 85,000 medical tourists that visited the USA in 2008, 40% were searching for the world’s most advanced technologies and 32% were seeking treatment that was unavailable in their home country, while just 9% were seeking treatment at a lower cost.
In the USA, the medical tourist can expect the very highest standards of care, equipment and facilities during their trip, with many clinics arranging everything from flights and accommodation to concierge services.
Since around 70% of American hospitals are not-for-profit organizations, medical tourism is seen by many as an important income stream, with the total market attracting an estimated $1billion in revenue from overseas patients every year. This in turn enhances their ‘bottom line’, allowing them to offer better services to the rest of their patients, especially those on lower incomes.
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