Medical Tourism: Consumers’ Concerns Over Risk and Social Challenges

Abstract

This paper studies factors that motivate an American's decision to seek medical care outside the United States. Principal components analysis yielded three factors -risk, social-related, and vacation. We found that the middle-income earners and recipients of Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, are more motivated by risk-related factors to travel for care, but the middle-aged and older, and the married are more motivated by social-related factors to travel for care. Medical tourism has the potential to ease the strain on the healthcare systems of developed countries. How well it does this will depend on how policy makers address these factors.

The north-south policy divide in transnational healthcare: a comparative review of policy research on medical tourism in source and destination countries

“…Such analytical nuance and the range of practical solutions that have been devised can be attributed to the industry being better researched, and policy research being more evolved and contextually oriented to regional realities in the US, than for instance, in Canada. Researchers have studied how factors such as transnational regulations, international treaties and trade agreements [47,48], domestic healthcare reforms [49], structural disparities [29,50,51], market forces [29,50], personal preferences of medical tourists [52,53] and destination country characteristics [53,54] affect cross-border healthcare. It has been argued that the focus on cost savings in policy debates in the US neglects such concerns as access, equity, quality and capacity, which occupy the centre stage in policy thinking in countries like Canada and the European Union [29,55].…”

Relationships between the motivation of medical tourists and the quality of medical services

“…Consequently, when a person's home‐based medical system is not meeting the needs of patients, they have the option to be a medical tourist (Connell, 2006; Fetscherin & Stephano, 2016; Han et al, 2018; Islam, 2014; Kim, Lee, & Ryu, 2018). The number of global medical tourists continues to increase, and the industry is highly valued since it includes healthcare, tourism, and other associated industries (Adams et al, 2015; Gan & Frederick, 2015; Kim, Sukato, Sangpikul, & Hwang, 2013; Suess et al, 2018).…”

“…The current study aims to investigate the motivations of overseas medical tourists who visit Korea for specific treatments, and correlate these with the quality of the medical services that they receive (Fetscherin & Stephano, 2016; Fisher & Sood, 2014; Gan & Frederick, 2015; Kim, Sukato, Sangpikul, & Hwang, 2013; Lee, 2010; Page, 2009). The study attempts to explain what motivations are crucial when tourists make the decision that Korea is the best option for meeting their medical needs (Gan & Frederick, 2013; Han, Lee, & Ryu, 2018).…”

Under the framework of qthe silk road economic beltq Analysis and enlightenment of the integration of hospital and medical tourism industry in China

“…医疗旅游产品的主要类型 卜克曼(Bookman)认为医疗旅游项目是将"高质量的医疗服务与旅游相结合"的医疗旅游 产品 [10] [12] 。发达国家的高成本费用、较长的等待时间与发展中国家相对较低的成本费用、进行手术 无需等待的差异，是吸引游客前往目的地国家进行医疗旅游的重要因素。比如 Kittikanya 研 究发现，泰国的医疗费用仅仅是新加坡的 1/2，美国的 1/5 [13] 。参加医疗旅游的人愿意到目的 地享受质量更好、成本更低、无等待时间的目的地非紧急医疗服务 [14] 。二是旅游目的地医疗 服务水平的提高和设施的完善。通过国际医疗机构认证已经成为招徕高质量国际医疗旅游者 的重要手段，在这一方面许多发展中国家走在了前列。三是具有地方特色的治疗方式。比如 印度传统医学阿育吠陀和瑜伽、韩国整形美容、泰国丰胸和变性以及中国中医技术等吸引了 大量的医疗旅游者前往学习、医疗及度假。四是互联网通讯技术的兴起、健康保险公司的发 展和医疗服务机构的迅速发展。这些因素进一步推动了医疗旅游的发展。Lydia L.等认为美国 居民参加医疗旅游主要受医疗保险政策的影响 [15] 。当然医疗旅游的影响因素还包括国家政府 部门的推动、世界经济全球化进程的加快、航空运输业的迅速发展与国际旅行费用的降低等 等。学者们对医疗旅游发展的阻碍因素也进行了研究。学者们发现精湛先进的医疗技术的缺 乏、语言交流的障碍道德规范的约束和政治的不稳定等因素都制约着医疗旅游的发展 [16] [17] ，他从科普角度介绍了当时新兴的一种以海洋资源为依托 的疗养方式; 王砚较早正式提出医疗旅游开发的思想 [18] ; 杨鸿玺介绍了埃及以其城市和矿泉、 硫磺泉水以及干燥性气候等自然旅游资源开展医疗旅游，吸引了一批批慕名而来的治疗皮肤 病、关节炎等疾病的旅游者 [19] ; 李芳、李耀中针对四川乐山旅游饭店经营问题提出要看到医 疗旅游的需求 [20] ; 任圆圆 [21] 和徐菲、陈婉丽 [22] 等学者从我国医学、医疗角度和国外医学、医 疗角度，对开发医疗旅游项目的做法和部分经验进行了介绍和说明; 李佳、苑彤彤首次对我 国医疗旅游业的发展做了分析和研究，对照国外医疗旅游发展好的国家和地区，分析了我国 开展医疗旅游的现状、问题，并提出对策和展望 [23] 。从 2007 年开始，有关医疗旅游的研究就 更加关注我们地区、地域文化和各区域资源的禀赋情况。如杨晓霞等从喀斯特洞穴的自然研 究角度探讨开展洞穴医疗旅游 [24] ；孙永平、刘丹对中医药旅游的概念进行了界定和探讨，并 通过对中医药旅游资源的分析，提出了发展中医药旅游的建议 [25] ；田广增对医疗保健专项旅 游的特点进行了初步分析， 并探讨了中国发展医疗保健旅游的优势和对策 [26] 。 到了 2008 年后， 有学者开始从旅游产业模式和产业融合角度研究和关注医疗旅游，如杨颖认为医疗旅游是旅 游产业演化、融合的高级表现形式 [27] 王琼、温小霓分析了西安医疗旅游的特点、发展空间， 并提出发展策略 [28] [32] 。…”