How to improve Indian medical tourism

The latest official figures on travel and medical tourism to India have put paid to the claim that India has millions of medical tourists, many from Europe or America seeking cut-price treatment. A government review has suggested what has to be done to make India a leading medical tourism destination.

The latest official figures on travel and medical tourism to India have put paid to the claim that India has millions of medical tourists, many from Europe or America seeking cut-price treatment. A government review has suggested what has to be done to make India a leading medical tourism destination.

According to the 2010 figures on inbound travel from the  Ministry of Tourism, there were 156,000 medical tourists, including those on medical visas and normal visas. Very few came from Europe or North America or other developed countries. The vast majority came from poor Asian or African countries that can only afford Indian prices and have poor healthcare at home. The two biggest providers of medical tourists were way ahead of all other countries and were the Maldives and Bangladesh. India had more medical tourists from Nigeria than from the combined totals of the UK, Western Europe and North America.

The government tasked the  Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management to study the problems and challenges faced by medical tourists going to India, and in particular to throw light on the gaps between what inbound medical tourists expected and what they actually got.

The research objectives were
• To map the Indian medical tourism value chain of hospitals and medical tourism agents.
• To identify the concerns of medical tourists.
• To identify the gaps in service.
• To identify weak points.
• To make recommendations.

The headline finding is that what medical tourists expect to pay as the price quoted for medical treatment is often much less than they actually pay for the treatment and all associated costs. The solution suggested is that hospitals and agents should offer package prices that reflect the full costs, rather than just tempting patients in with a low quote just for the medical procedure.

The next major area of concern is that as most patients are actually from nearby countries, there are a large number who cannot speak Hindi; while most from Africa and the Middle East do not speak English. So there are language difficulties in communicating between doctors and patients,  and that using interpreters is neither comfortable nor efficient.

The third problem found that while the quality of treatment may be high, the related quality of care, buildings and accommodation is often not. While well-off patients can afford hotels, the many poor ones are often disappointed with the lower quality accommodation that they can afford.

The review places much of the blame for prices being under-quoted, not on the hospitals, but on the medical tourism agents operating in a highly competitive market seeking to get business. It also blames them for giving patients a higher expectation of the overall experience than many actually get and of having no interest in after care.

Another key problem area identified was on care after the patient left hospital. As the review found that for the poorer medical tourists in particular, major surgery (with cardiac treatment being the main one) is the reason for travel, after care is very important. The review found that follow up care was often poor or non-existent, with not enough communication with doctors in the medical tourists’ home countries.

The researchers made several recommendations including-
• Increase marketing to developing countries in Africa.
• Hospitals must target niche markets by country and treatment.
• Hospitals should bundle costs of treatment and care.
• The medical visa system leads to people going to Thailand instead.
• The government should decide what type of medical tourism it wants to promote and what type of visitor from where.
• The government should actively promote Indian medical tourism