Around Tourism: The benefits of medical tourism and why medical travel is recommended

Medical tourism is a booming industry. Medical travel essentially means traveling to a different location, generally a different country for getting medical aid. Medical tourism is not a new concept. The Greeks and Egyptians traveled to hot springs and other such salubrious places in order to get health benefits. This age old practice of medical travel has now become a blossoming industry.

Medical aid in the US is a highly expensive proposition. There are millions of Americans today who are either uninsured or are only partly insured. This lack of proper health insurance coverage makes it very difficult for the ordinary man to get medical treatment in the US due to the exorbitant costs. This is the reason many Asian and Middle East countries are proving to be great places for the medical travel industry. The inconvenience which a medical traveler faces as he has to travel to a new country fades into insignificance when weighed against the various benefits that he enjoys.

Countries like India and some other Asian and Middle Eastern countries are coming up with amazing facilities which they offer for medical tourism.

In order to cater to the demands of people coming from US, UK, Canada and other European countries, the nations offering medical travel are coming up with highly luxurious hospitals with the best health care anywhere in the world. The medical facilities available in these countries are in no way inferior to those available in the European countries. The medical cost is almost 75 to 90 percent lower than US and UK in these Asian countries which offer medical tourism.

There are several reasons which attribute to the success of the medical travel concept. The most common reason for undertaking medical tourism is the money which can be saved by getting oneself treated in an Asian country as opposed to a European. Although this is an important factor, it is by no means the only one.

Many people who undertake medical travel find the doctors much more approachable in the Asian and Middle Eastern countries. It is easier to get answers to your questions from a doctor who takes a personal interest in you and gives you his undivided time and attention rather than from a doctor who is so bogged down by so many patients that personalized attention and care is alien to him. Such overloaded doctors are generally very common in the western countries, while the health facilities which offer medical tourism ensure that they have more patient and caring doctors.

The countries offering medical tourism take a lot of pains to ensure smooth transition for the medical travelers into the new place. There are several businesses which exist in these countries whose sole purpose is taking care of every comfort of a medical traveler. Right from picking them from the airport to providing them with a local translator, everything is taken care of by these businesses.