Malaysia: recovery, rebuild, then growth

Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry has significant government support.  It is identified on the national agenda, the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (2021-25), as a key economic growth area.  At LaingBuisson’s Private Healthcare Summit 2021, Mohd Daud Mohd Arif, new CEO of Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC), explained their plans to ensure international patient growth in 2025 and beyond.

Malaysia is an award-winning medical travel destination, with a government that believes there is a huge economic benefit in investing in healthcare and medical tourism.

Fully owned by the government, MHTC is a sizeable organisation whose role is to work with private sector hospitals and government departments including the Health Ministry (MoH), the National Security Council (NSC) and the Immigration Department, to grow the country’s share of the international patient market.

The Council’s key focus is on cultivating an end-to-end, connected patient experience, starting from visa arrangements and airport lounge services on arrival, through to accommodation, concierge and taxi services, medical treatment and recovery. A strong public-private partnership working ethos means that private hospitals see MHTC’s services as significant contributors their business.

While MHTC is mostly funded out of government budgets, it also has an income stream from private hospital membership fees.  The government is also looking at ways the organisation can be more self-sustaining in the future.

Quick reaction post lockdown

The pandemic hit hard and Malaysia’s revenue stream from international patients dropped 53%.

MHTC reacted quickly after the initial lockdown in March 2020.  Working closely with the NSC, it pushed to develop Standard Operating Procedures to oversee bringing in patients safely from abroad, while protecting Malaysian citizens but also ensuring a high quality continuum of care for the patient.

By July 2020, in what MHTC sees as a world first, the government allowed medical travel bubbles to be established, to bring in critical international patients for treatment.  It was allowed to happen, Mohd Daud Mohd Arif believes, because of the strong focus on safety, testing and isolation procedures before patients leave, and detailed procedures covering all steps to treatment, starting from arrival at the airport. The result has been to reinforce trust in and outside the country that Malaysia is a safe destination.

Three phases to rebuild medical travel

MHTC is now working with the private hospital sector on a strategy moving out of the immediate impact of Covid-19.  It has identified three phases to rebuild:

Recovery phase (2021-22).

Working closely with government departments, MHTC is working on communications to keep potential customers in target markets interested and to keep the brand ‘warm’.

It is looking to further strengthen the patient experience, particularly for inbound tourists who seek medical treatment at the same time. The treatments are often not critical, such as health screening, dental services and wellness, and MHTC sees benefits in a closer partnership between healthcare provision and the leisure industry sector.

It is also assessing where digital technologies can play a greater role in the various touchpoints patients have with both the private hospitals, but also with government departments (e.g., border control).

Rebuild phase (2023-25)

MHTC will enhance its branding and promote its niche offerings. These cover their plans to:

• Become the cardiology and fertility hub of Asia. It believes that the majority of international patients for fertility treatment will come from China.
• Establish a cancer centre of excellence for Asia
• Create a ‘full service’ destination for aged care
• Develop a flagship programme to identify 1-2 private hospitals to promote globally as medical tourism hospitals. It is expected that these hospitals will invest in this promotion, but will also receive incentives from the government.

Growth (2025 and beyond)

MHTC believes it will take until 2025 to achieve pre-Covid figures in terms of revenue for the country.

Targeting closer to home

MHTC is eyeing countries within the same region or places with shorter flight distance to Malaysia as its target market particularly for critical cases needing fast treatment.

Regionally, the country normally receives tourists from China, Vietnam and Myanmar, but Indonesia has always been the main source of medical tourists. It sees the huge potential of China, which is why it has been targeting the country’s secondary and tertiary cities where income level has risen.

Beyond the short-haul and medium-haul market, MHTC is casting its net as wide as possible, assessing new potential markets including India and the Middle East, but these are still at the exploratory stage. The regular source market of Australia and New Zealand looks to remain closed until 2022.

Vaccine passports have been strongly advocated by the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia, as a way to allow foreign patients to go to Malaysia; but MHTC and the MoH are strongly opposed, at least for now.

Sustainable healthcare

Closed borders and travel restrictions are making it hard for MHTC and its stakeholders in bringing growth to the medical travel segment. The pandemic has been a wake-up call for the industry to be ready to ensure sustainability, especially via telehealth services.

MHTC now has a new partnership with digital healthcare platform DoctorOnCall. 75 MHTC member hospitals have access to the platform’s digital healthcare capabilities to provide telehealth services, such as online engagements and webinars, allowing patients to continue consultations with doctors in Malaysia amid travel restrictions.

MHTC is working with the private sector in developing the country’s Healthcare Blueprint towards 2025. Infrastructure, training, service provider and enhancing skills are just some of the measures that it will be looking at in developing the blueprint, as well as identifying specific action plans for the near future and long term. The blueprint is still in the pipeline, and MHTC is consulting with all industry players and the government.