If you have never heard of the phrase medical tourism, it is essentially a term that encompasses the concept of travelling to a different country from your own in order to undergo medical procedures that might not be available where you are, or might be too expensive for you to have at home, or even for the purposes of seeking out a particular professional in your field of interest. Some people are firmly against medical tourism, whilst others see it as an acceptable and even necessary part of life. Here are the pros and cons of medical tourism.
Snapshot Survey
Snapshot Survey
1. Pro – Low Cost
Depending on where you live and where you are looking to travel to, it can be very cost effective to travel to have a procedure done. Currency exchange can make medical tourism very cheap compared to home country costs.
2. Pro – Wait Time
There might be a long wait for your producer in your home country, but a very short wait abroad, so medical tourism can solve the time scale problem for someone who is willing to travel to get immediate care.
3. Pro – Availability
A particularly procedure that you are looking to get might not be available in your country for various reasons, so in cases like this it can be an option to go abroad to a place where the treatment is offered.
4. Con – Language Barrier
Depending on where you travel to, there could be the issue of a language barrier between you and your medical professionals. This poses the risk of causing a problem if there were ever to be a miscommunication between parties. You don’t want to risk something so important being lost in translation.
5. Con - Research
There is always the risk of not knowing much about your doctor or facility, and then that desired information being difficult to find or understand thanks to language or culture differences.
6. Con – Problem Solving
If any post-treatment problems were to arise, it is always going to much harder to follow up with doctors than if you are contacting people from back in your home country. Choosing to have something done at home instead makes the after care and problem solving so much easier.
7. Con – Legality
Just because something is available to be performed abroad, it still doesn’t make it necessarily legal. Crossing borders for a medical procedure might seem simple, but it can get very messy very quickly if you find yourself in some sort of legal trouble or consideration.