India accredits Medical Tourism Facilitators

Only two Indian medical tourism agents have been certified by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers.

The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) issued new rules for the accreditation of medical tourism agents in 2016.

By February 2017 only two agents had been certified-

• AAA+ Healthcare Consultancy Services of Mumbai
• Magnus MediTourism of Mumbai

There are hundreds of medical tourism agents in India, mostly single person operations.

Empanelment of Medical Value Travel for Medical Facilitators (MVTF), accreditation is voluntary and is valid for two years at a time. Empanelment is the provision by an independent body of a certificate that the services being provided by the facilitator meets specific requirements. The objective of NABH is to initiate programmes focusing on patient safety through a process of self and external evaluation in order to test the accountability and reliability of the facilitators. The empanelment criteria are not prescriptive. They only lay down the requirements and it is up to organisation to come out with the systems, processes and modes of measuring performance indicators that can demonstrate compliance to the requirements as specified in the empanelment criteria.

A new accreditation system for hospitals, to include a grading system taking into account comforts and luxuries, has also been discussed. No decision has been reached.