While the Ministry of Tourism is promoting Israel as a medical tourist destination and sponsoring medical tourism conferences, the Ministry of Health is preparing new guidelines that could severely restrict access for foreigners and stifle medical tourism. If the suggestion is carried out, this will disappoint Israel’s hospitals, as with insufficient official funding, hospitals argue that treating foreigners adds to their income and helps cover costs of treating Israelis as well.
While the Ministry of Tourism is promoting Israel as a medical tourist destination and sponsoring medical tourism conferences, the Ministry of Health is preparing new guidelines that could severely restrict access for foreigners and stifle medical tourism.
If the suggestion is carried out, this will disappoint Israel’s hospitals, as with insufficient official funding, hospitals argue that treating foreigners adds to their income and helps cover costs of treating Israelis as well.
After research into the pros and cons of medical tourism for Israel, a proposal that the state supervise medical tourism by foreigners and limit the number of patients from abroad so as not to harm Israelis has been distributed by the Ministry of Health. The ministry’s Professor Ronni Gamzu proposes that clear criteria are set in hospitals and other medical facilities that want to treat foreign tourists in public medical facilities. The hospitals will be given instructions on how to balance the advantages of medical tourism with the prevention of harm to Israeli hospital patients. A new committee will make recommendations on the issue.
Public hospital directors regard medical tourism as a boon because foreigners are charged more than the health funds pay for their members’ hospitalization. In the face of inadequate public funding, treating foreigners adds to their income and helps cover costs of treating Israelis as well, the hospitals argue.
But the ministry’s research suggests the opposite view. Not only do foreigners get more comfortable hotel services such as better food and private rooms, but they are treated at the expense of Israelis who do not pay. Gamzu is adamant that Israelis must have first priority in treatment and recommends that a medical director for medical tourism be appointed in each hospital and clinic to ensure that locals get the care they are entitled to. The share of medical tourist treatment in Israeli hospitals will be limited, to 5 % of total patient numbers per hospital.
Arguments that hospitals need the finance have been torpedoed by the ministry promising extra funding channeled into improving the care of Israeli patients by improving infrastructure and reducing queues for treatment. The ministry is also preparing rules on how hospitals must spend a portion of medical tourism income on improving local care. Hospitals will not be allowed to go into deficit on medical tourism services; they must send an annual special report on their activities prepared by an independent accountant.
Although not certain, it is highly likely that the health ministry proposals will go through as coincidentally, justification for a tough policy on medical tourism comes from a new comparative report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This report states that Israel has the highest hospital occupancy in the West; the overall occupancy rate in the general hospitals in Israel is 96.3 %, ahead of all the other 25 countries, including UK (84.2 %), Germany (76.2%), France (74.4 %), USA (65.5 %) and Netherlands (52.7%). The average length of stay in Israeli hospitals is one of the lowest in the West, only four days, with only Mexico ranked below Israel (3.9 days), and all the other countries ahead of it, including France (5.2 days), USA (5.4), UK (8.6) and Germany (7.5). The authors of the report just happen to be Nir Keidar and Tuvia Horev from the Health Ministry. The report also highlights a shortage of nurses in Israel.
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