Health tourism is essentially a consumption of various types of medical services abroad. It involves the movement of consumers to the country providing the service for diagnosis or treatment. Historically, health tourism was regarded as a nature-based form of tourism. It was associated with spas and other facilities that relied on a supply of therapeutic services. It has become much more sophisticated since then.
Inexpensive and high-quality medical treatments abroad have been attracting foreigners for years. The most popular treatments among health tourists are dental work, cosmetic, eye and orthopaedic surgery, cardiac care and rehabilitation services. Costs of health treatments vary between industrialized and developing nations quite significantly. The lower price however does not mean the poorer quality or service. The clinics that cater for the tourist market are usually amongst the most professionally equipped with staff that has some of the highest qualifications in the industry. Clinics in some countries have unlimited access to sophisticated research resources. Patients need to remember that there are also some restrictions about getting a treatment oversees. Patients might not be covered by insurance in situations where after-surgery complications arise. Some sceptics believe that most of chronic diseases cannot be treated after a single consultation. It is worth mentioning however that patients often get no more than one consultation with a specialist in their home country before the decision on the treatment is made.
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The health care is becoming a truly global phenomenon as the national borders are no longer an obstacle. Patients more often than ever are willing to travel oversees in search of a treatment, either because is not available in their own country or because it can be done quicker or at lower price elsewhere. In countries such as the UK, the waiting lists for various treatments can be quite long due to high reliance of public health system. Not surprisingly people travel abroad to destinations where the time spent waiting can be reduced to a minimum. Although the trade in medical tourism has existed for many years, the political and economic changes over the past few years made it available to the wider group of people. The health market is expected to grow rapidly in the following years. According to Carrera et al (2006), health tourism at an international level is sustained by 617 million individuals with an annual growth of 3.9% annually and worth US$513 billion.
