Putting the medical back into medical tourism

Guam’s TakeCare Insurance Company has launched a new medical tourism company Veiovis to provide expertise, experience and service to the global medical tourism industry. The Guam-based subsidiary will operate internationally.

Veiovis’s founder Joseph Husslein says, “ It is time to put the medical concerns of the patient on par with the tourist needs of the traveller in this industry.  Veiovis is designed to put the medical back into medical travel. Veiovis is an offshoot of TakeCare Insurance, with offices in Seattle, Washington, Guam, and Manila.

Ed Fess, medical director for TakeCare and Veiovis explains, “As I meet with both US and international doctors and hospitals, their common concern has been a severe lack among medical travel agents with experience in medical case management.  The industry is populated by agents with primarily travel and tourism backgrounds who have almost no developed infrastructure for managing the entire continuum of patient care.  By contrast, Veiovis leverages a model for overseas medicine anchored in health care management and real clinical resources that has been refined over the course of two decades through TakeCare.”

Grace Murphy for Veiovis adds, “ Three key patient responses need to be minimized as much as possible for the medical traveller:  stress, confusion and service irrelevance. Our patients rely on us to safely bridge the distance between their home-based doctor and their overseas hospital. A medical travel agency that can consistently meet that expectation is going to be more relevant to the consumer.”

TakeCare Insurance Company, Inc. is the sole Guam-based health insurance provider for the U.S. Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. Veiovis uses TakeCare’s health insurance and clinic operations, and success as a pioneer of medical travel, especially to the Philippines and other Asian medical destinations.

Established in 1972, TakeCare is a privately held consumer health organization offering medical and dental insurance products covering 45,000 people and providing healthcare through full-service medical, dental, and optometry clinics. The largest insurer in Guam offers health plans to private businesses, the public sector and exclusively to the US Federal government. It uses a network of hospitals in The Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Hawaii and the United States.

Veiovis’ services for individuals and groups include:

  • An assessment of medical condition and needs
  •  Connecting patients with the appropriate specialists in a particular type of medicine or a particular condition or disease.
  •  Concierge services for such tasks as booking airlines, hotels, ground transport, laundry, cooking and courier service.
  •   Access to the hospital network

The Veoivis hospital network;

Philippines

  • St. Luke’s Medical Center
  • The Medical City

Thailand

  • Bumrumgrad International

Taiwan

  • Taiwan Adventist Medical Center

Singapore

  • Raffles Hospital

Hawaii

  • Straub Clinic and Hospital
  •  Kapi’olani Medical Center at Pali Momi

    California

  •  Anaheim Memorial Medical Center
  • Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
  • Good Samaritan Hospital
  • Long Beach Memorial Medical Center
  • Millers Children’s Hospital
  • UCLA Medical Center

Oregon

  •  Oregon Health and Science University