Many countries have been making serious moves to capitalize on this by building new, stat-of-the-art hospitals, brining in experts from all over the world to practice at these facilities, and have partnered with elite U.S. institutions such as Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical School.
Who are they trying to attract? Well, as patients from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. are getting frustrated with long wait times for care becoming even longer, they’re traveling abroad for care. This year alone we’ll see about 1.2 million Americans leave this country to receive treatments overseas. They’re traveling to places like India, which is speculated to earn around $2 billion next year from medical tourism or to Turkey which is expected to grow their medical tourism market by 32% over the next 3 years.
Will the day come when we see 20 million Americans leave our shores each year to receive care abroad? Probably not as U.S. providers are beginning to take actions to capture these patients by reducing their rates and providing more services.
What we do know is that the day is quickly approaching when most people will leave their local community to receive health care services somewhere else.
