Medical Tourists: Who Goes and What Motivates Them?

Abstract

This study relates consumers' attitudes toward medical tourism to a number of consumer characteristics, such as age, education, income, and insurance status. Principal components analysis of the attitudes of 289 consumers from various communities of North Carolina resulted in three attitude-related factors: economic, treatment-related, and travel-related. Major findings include: (a) the uninsured and low-income consumers are more sensitive to economic factors than the insured and the middle-income consumers; (b) the 51- to 64-year-olds are less motivated by economic factors than young adults; (c) surprisingly, the better one's health, the more one is motivated by treatment-related factors.

Medical Tourism: Consumers’ Concerns Over Risk and Social Challenges

“…Other studies show that medical tourists are more likely to be of middle incomes (Gan & Frederick, 2013;Horowitz & Rosensweig, 2008;Milstein & Smith, 2006). Middle-to high-income persons are also known to have toured abroad more often (Kattiyapornpong & Miller, 2008;Reece, 2003;Woodside & Pitts, 1976), they would be more likely to value the assurance of a safe trip or low travel risk.…”

“…There were still approximately 47.9 million, or 17.9%, of the non-elderly who Lydia L. Gan and James R. Frederick 505 were uninsured in the US in 2011 (DeNavasWalt, Proctor, & Smith, 2012). Many among the medical tourists who travel for care are uninsured (Gan & Frederick, 2013;Higgins, 2007;Horowitz & Rosensweig, 2008;Landeck & Garza, 2003;Su, Richardson, Wen, & Pagán, 2011). Consumers whose treatments are covered by their health plans often only pay a small fraction of their treatment costs.…”

International Medical Travelers’ Behavioral Intention: An Empirical Study in Iran

“…In MT, generally the services comprise adoptive procedures as well as complicated procedures, and include experts in, for example, cardiac, cosmetic, and dental care, and also weight-loss surgery Gan & Frederick, 2013;Mujani et al, 2012). It can be seen from two different aspects: firstly, there is health services and facility advertising to attract medical travelers to a particular tourism attraction or destination, and secondly, travelers visiting places and traveling to destinations for health treatment, bringing the traveler to the medical services (Lee et al, 2012).…”

Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Health Care Access and Utilization Among Latinos

“…26 Similarly, lawful permanent residents must undergo a 5-year waiting period in most states before they are eligible for ACA benefits under Medicaid. 37 Furthermore, the ACA did not address larger structural and economic issues that discourage noncitizens from seeking health care (ie, a historic number of immigrant deportations, 44 cheaper health care abroad 45,46 and universal health care in most Latin American countries 47,48 ). Thus, by design, the ACA has limited ability to address the needs of noncitizens.…”