Risks of Medical Tourism Abroad

Medical treatment abroad, also called ‘medical tourism’, is a booming international industry where patients seek healthcare from sources outside their country. Usually every type of medical treatment is available abroad with over 50 countries identifying as destinations in medical tourism. Increased familiarity with destination country protocols is necessary, and all potential risks should be taken into account before making a final decision to travel abroad.

Medical tourism guide

Suppose you need surgery and cannot afford it. Or maybe you want to try an experimental treatment that is not available in the United States. You could be seeking cosmetic surgery, but find that the costs are too high. What are your options? A growing number of people in the United States are seeking medical treatment in unlikely places—overseas hospitals. Traveling internationally for medical care is often referred to as medical tourism. But, it may not be as carefree as your average vacation. If your vacation destination is a hospital rather than a hotel, you have a lot more to consider than your fellow vacationers do.

India, Thailand, and Malaysia are among the nations driving the medical tourism revolution. Medical tourism in India, which is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism, is growing nearly 30% annually. Indian medical corporations aggressively court American and western patients with package deals that include flights, hotels, treatments and postoperative recovery vacations. A low-cost gastric bypass in sunny Mexico, a tummy tuck in Brazil or fertility and cancer treatment in India—it’s all part of medical tourism, the umbrella term for traveling abroad to obtain inexpensive health care, for both medically necessary and cosmetic treatment. While the concept has been around for years, recent stories in the media have pointed out the risks involved, but medical tourism is an estimated $24-40 billon-dollar industry, says Patients Without Borders.

Medical risks

Medical tourism increases the risk of nosocomial infections, also referred to as healthcare or hospital acquired infections. For example, if needles are reused between patients or other unsafe injection practices are occurring, serious infections such as hepatitis and HIV can be transmitted. Patient autonomy and informed consent both represent a cornerstone of bioethics, which can sometimes mean a concerning issue for medical tourists. In the context of medical tourism, informed consent can be influenced by ambiguous or incomplete information on websites, problems in obtaining veracious information about success rates and the quality of care in destination facilities.

A British National Health Research Institute study published in February found many consumers who traveled for medical treatment were not informed about potentially serious risks. The study found most people rely on the Internet or friends rather than hard clinical findings. They had no idea about the risks, such as a lack of legal recourse and the costs of non-emergency care back home to fix problems that arose overseas. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventionexpress similar concerns and cautions about other potential problems. These include language barriers, unsafe needle reuse, substandard medication, greater bacteria presence and increased risk of post-surgical blood clots after a long flight.

 

Medical Tourism Centers – Florida Medical Clinics

Florida medical center

Florida is continue to be an international destination for people seeking top medical care. Florid growing in medical tourism for every sector of medical. Florida lawmakers may vote to spend millions of dollars to encourage sick people to use local health care services — just not the hundreds of thousands of poor and uninsured people who actually live in the Sunshine State. The Florida state Senate’s Commerce and Tourism committee unanimously backed a bill on Tuesday that would appropriate $5 million in 2015 for attracting medical tourism — a burgeoning industry in which people travel to other countries to seek health care that is either too expensive or too difficult to access in their own. If the full legislature passes the funding, Florida’s tourism arm will direct a marketing campaign that plays up the state’s health care providers and specialty medical services to an international audience. Florida medical clinics FMC continues to expand and recently opened a $5 million facility in Zephryhills where the business is headquartered.

Florida Medical Clinics And centers

North Florida Medical Centers, Inc. (NFMC) consists of 12 community health centers located throughout North Florida that provide a quality and affordable medical care and dental care home for the entire family. We are proud of what we do and we live by our mission every day at each of our centers. We work endlessly to increase awareness about the importance of healthy lifestyles and preventive practices and to improve the health of our communities. Most insurance is accepted, including Blue Cross / Blue Shield, Medicare and Medicaid and more. We offer a sliding fee discount program and a discount prescription program for our patients.

St. Luke’s Medical and Dental Clinic

Provides medical services for uninsured. Also provides dental services (filling & extractions) for those uninsured. Patients are seen by appointment only. The St. Luke’s Medical & Dental Clinic is a program of Catholic Charities of Central Florida in partnership with St. Mary of The Lakes and St. Patrick Catholic Churches. St. Luke’s Free Medical and Dental Clinic provides care to qualified residents of Lake, Marion, North Orange and North Seminole Counties.

Florida Medical Clinic

Florida Medical Clinic recently announced plans to build a three-story medical office building on the Wiregrass Ranch property between the Shops at Wiregrass and Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel. Construction on the 85,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to begin this summer, with plans to open in summer 2015. The building is expected to be home to an estimated 45 to 50 physicians and more than 150 medical employees, supporting 20-plus medical specialties. According to marketing director Janet Wing, those will include family medicine, internal medicine, urgent care, orthopedic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, nephrology, otolaryngology, psychiatry, pediatrics, cardiology, gastroenterology, urology, neurology and general surgery. Other on-site services will include diagnostic radiology, laboratory and physical therapy.

Seawind Medical Clinic and Centre

Seawind Medical Clinic was established in 2000 to support one of the largest tourist destination and fastest-growing communities in the country. The clinic provides quality, convenient care in the Port area and eastern part of Panama City Beach not only to our residents and college students from the two area institutions, but also our visitors to the Panama City area. We want our tourists to find a home away from home in Panama City. Seawind Medical Clinic provides services to tourists needing medical attention during their visit, including elderly visitors who often have ongoing medical needs.

Florida Medical Clinic Urgent Care Center

Florida Medical Clinic Urgent Care is an urgent care center in Zephyrhills, FL located at 38107 Market Sq., . They are open 7 days a week seeing walk-in patients in Zephyrhills. Florida Medical Clinic Urgent Care appears to be individually owned and operated and not part of a larger network of urgent care clinics. There are, however, 2 walk-in clinics within 20 miles of Zephyrhills in cities including Dade City and Wesley Chapel.