PlanetHospital, an established California-based medical tourism agency, has opened an office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to serve inbound and outbound medical tourists from the Gulf region.
"The Gulf has the potential to drive growth in medical tourism. It is not only a place where medical travellers come from, but it is also becoming a medical tourism destination itself thanks to major hospital development throughout the region," said Mohammed Alarifi, managing director of PlanetHospital in Jeddah.
In the past few years, the company has helped patients from the Middle East to secure advanced medical treatment abroad. With PlanetHospital Middle East, the company now will be aggressively promoting its ability to inbound medical tourists to the Gulf region hospitals. It will work with local new insurance providers to create a medical tourism based benefit, and eventually attract Middle Eastern expatriates in the US to come to the region for medical treatment, rather than going elsewhere.
PlanetHospital has been working to expand its business by teaming up with insurers interested in providing an overseas option for members. Company founder Rudy Rupak said they have been negotiating with a major US insurer but those plans are delayed until at least 2010, after the insurer became a prominent victim of the financial crisis. PlanetHospital does already offer a range of insured plans for specific countries and ethnic groups.
Since 2002,PlanetHospital has sent more than 2,000 patients to overseas hospitals.
No comments:
Post a Comment