Need treatment, will travel. The medical tourism opportunity.
June 12, 2019
By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc – MMiami.com
- Soaring medical costs on US soil are become prohibitive for a large percentage of the population.
- More and more patients are seeking treatments outside the fifty continental states.
- Particularly those without comprehensive healthcare coverage.
- Credit card operator Visa estimates that 11 million Americans travel abroad each year for medical care.
- Most of these travellers range between 45 and 64 years of age.
- The majority are Caucasian and college educated, with 50 percent having household incomes between USD 50,000 and 100,000.
- Additionally, 50 percent of them have health insurance.
- These patients claim savings above USD 4,900 make it worth pursuing medical tourism as an option.*
- Southeast Asia has been the most aggressive and successful in the endeavor to attract medical tourists.
- Six of the world’s top ten medical tourist destinations lie in Southeast Asia.
- But Southeast Asia is way too far.
- Latin America and, particularly, Puerto Rico show substantial potential for growth in attracting Americans and Canadians for medical procedures.
- Yeah, I know: US Hispanics have traveling south of the border for breast augmentation and liposuction for decades now.
- How long until the same applies to heart surgery, orthopedic treatments et al?
- Just so you know, a hip replacement operation that costs north of $50k on US soil can be performed with comparable outcome (in other words, without complications) by ONE THIRD OF THAT PRICE TAG in various countries of Latin America.
- This is a HUGE marketing opportunity for bicultural marketing & advertising professionals north of the border.
- The big healthcare insurers would LOVE these kinds of savings.
- By the way, I’m on it already.
- Looking for advertisers and financial backers with considerable success.
- If you are interested in tagging along and exploring this promising field, you know where to find me.
*Source: Global Buyers Survey 2017