Medical Tourism in a Socialized Health Care System—The Need for Strict Systemic Supervision

Zvi H Perry,Liat Apel-Sarid,Asaf Toker,Liat Salzer

doi:10.22158/rhs.v4n2p68

Abstract

Medical tourism is defined by the active act of traveling from a patient’s country of origin to a different country, specifically to receive medical treatment. Globalization has made a tremendous change in the field of medical tourism. Medical tourism statistics revealed an anticipated growth of the industry from about $40 billion in 2004 to $100 billion by 2012, as estimated by the McKinsey Company (Shetty, 2010). The size of the global medical tourism market increased about 2.5 times from 2004 to 2012 by approximately USD 10 billion, and it is expected to reach approximately USD 33 billion by 2019 (Seo &amp; Park, 2018). Israel has emerged as a medical tourism destination due to the advantages it can offer. Israel’s facilities are recognized throughout the world, and provide high quality of care at reasonable prices. But, Israel has a socialized health care system. This means that the national health insurance program is financed mainly by the government from public sources, such as health insurance tax that is collected by the general payroll and other general tax revenues, but also directly from the public through out-of-pocket money and private complementary health insurances. In comparison to OECD countries, Israel’s hospitals are characterized by a very low bed to population ratio, an extremely low average length of stay, a high rate of admissions per 1000 population, and a high occupancy rate, which means this is already a very “lean” and effective system, that is on the verge of collapse due to a lack of funding. In relation to this medical tourism raises a lot of ethical, moral and economic issues for the Israeli health system. In the current article we try to shed some light upon these problems and suggest feasible solutions for them.We suggest that countries should adopt an ethical code and health policy, which will be used by local hospitals to maintain the delicate balance between medical services to the local population and medical tourism.

Highlights

1.1 Medical Tourism as a Phenomena Medical tourism is defined by the active act of traveling from a patient’s country of origin to a different country, to receive medical treatment
We suggest that countries should adopt an ethical code and health policy, which will be used by local hospitals to maintain the delicate balance between medical services to the local population and medical tourism
Similar results have been seen in a study that has surveyed the time trends in health tourism in Canada (Loh, 2015), and recent studies have shown that the size of the global medical tourism market increased about 2.5 times from 2004 to 2012 by approximately USD 10 billion, and it is expected to reach approximately USD 33 billion by 2019 (Seo & Park, 2018)

Summary

Background

1.1 Medical Tourism as a Phenomena Medical tourism is defined by the active act of traveling from a patient’s country of origin to a different country, to receive medical treatment. International patients are usually seeking services such as major surgery or chemotherapy treatment, but are looking for elective surgeries, as well as advanced diagnostic procedures This is mainly an act of people who are sponsoring from their own money a medical procedure, diagnosis or other service in a country not their own. Where medical tourism used to be from less-developed to more-developed countries, traveling to less-developed countries in order to lower costs and bypass waiting lists, or governmental regulations has become an attractive option (Eltorai & Garimella, 2018). The Confederation of Indian Industry predicted that India would see revenues in excess of 2 billion dollars from medical tourism by 2012 (Shetty, 2010). Similar results have been seen in a study that has surveyed the time trends in health tourism in Canada (Loh, 2015), and recent studies have shown that the size of the global medical tourism market increased about 2.5 times from 2004 to 2012 by approximately USD 10 billion, and it is expected to reach approximately USD 33 billion by 2019 (Seo & Park, 2018)

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Discussion

Conclusions