UNITED STATES: Two firms link up to offer new medical travel insurance

Specialist American travel insurance intermediary Seven Corners has signed US medical tourism agency Healthbase as the first preferred partner for the bordercross worldwide policy underwritten at Lloyds’ of London. The insurance is for any nationality, but the patient must be travelling outside the country they live in.

Saroja Mohanasundaram, chief executive of Healthbase, said: "We are the only medical travel facilitator to provide a custom insurance programme to our clients as a further commitment to providing high-quality medical travel services at an affordable cost."

The insurance plan provides Healthbase patients coverage for the treatment of common surgical complications such as adverse reactions to anesthesia, stroke, myocardial infarction, deep vein thrombosis and infections.

Jim Krampen of Seven Corners said: "The medical complication benefits we designed for Healthbase clients will provide peace of mind and cover the cost to treat medical complications abroad and when they return home."

Healthbase has a large number of internationally accredited hospitals in 14 countries, including India, Mexico, Costa Rica, Singapore, Thailand, Panama, Turkey, Belgium, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hungary, Brazil and the US.

Healthbase customers do not all live in the US. There are plans to add more destination countries soon - Canada, the UK, Jordan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Seven Corners originally planned to only sell via medical tourism agencies, but progress on this has been so slow that they are now also offering to quote direct to medical tourists.

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ROMANIA: Medical Insight launches website for health travel outside Romania

Medical services consulting company, Medical Insight, has launched healthtravel.ro, the first Romanian site containing information about foreign hospitals. The website targets those who want to travel from Romania for medical services and capitalizes on a developing trend on the Romanian market. Many Romanian patients ? including Romanian president Traian Basescu ? have chosen hospitals outside the country for major health interventions. Medical Insight, founded in 2010, is a company that offers consultancy to those who are looking for medical services in foreign countries.

Adriana Sarbu of Medical Insight says, “If in the past people used to go to Austria or Germany for treatment, now, according to our research, a lot of Romanians prefer Turkey for medical controls and interventions. This is a growing thing, considering that the quality of service is very high and that the prices are comparable to the ones in Romania and lower than those from the Western European countries.”

The site contains information about treatments, medical specialties and the country providing treatment, along with detailed presentations of hospitals based on the held certifications, reports of independent institutions and former patients reviews. The site also helps people who want information about health insurance or funding opportunities for treatments.

Romanian hospitals might be classified into five categories of competence from May this year, if the Romanian Health Ministry’s project is approved. The project contains the methodology for classifying hospitals, depending on jurisdiction and minimum mandatory criteria for hospitals classification in new categories. This should ensure efficiency by avoiding overlap and duplication between hospital units, ensuring equitable access to health services for citizens and lower treatment costs. Moreover, the classification based on this methodology will be used to establish protocols for transferring uncritical cases between hospitals. It will also play a key role in developing proposals for additional funding to hospitals and good planning, as well as procurement of medical equipment.

Private healthcare services operator Centrul Medical Unirea (CMU), the second largest clinic group in Romania, bought Euroclinc with a hospital and three clinics. CMU runs four hospitals in Bucharest, a hospital in Brasov and 20 clinics. It also owns half of the stem cell bank Stem ? Health Unirea in Bucharest. The company took over Euroclinic hospital and clinics from Eureko in September 2010. CMU is majority owned by investment fund Advent, and the rest of the shares are owned by founder Wargha Enayati.Despite such investment, the provision of health services in the country is still poor, which is why many people seek treatment elsewhere.

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USA: US cities explore potential for inbound and domestic medical travel

Several US cities and states are keen on promoting medical tourism, to boost the economy and as an alternative to declining numbers in tourism from other areas and overseas.

A recent study commissioned by Nevada recommended that the state leverage its medical/health sector to take advantage of opportunities in medical tourism. The study, by Brookings/SRS, urged Nevada to incorporate niche tourism markets, such as health and wellness travel, as part of its new economic development plan.

The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) is a private, not-for-profit sales and marketing organization. It is a private-public partnership with more than 1000 private business members and four local governments. The GMCVB medical tourism initiative is aimed at marketing Miami as an international medical destination. GMCVB wants more local medical tourism members and offers a dedicated web page on MiamiHealthCare.org website, printed insert for inclusion in its medical tourism brochure, inclusion in ads of in-flight publications and the opportunity to participate in international media familiarisation tours

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has produced a 176-page Las Vegas health and wellness destination guide. The guide contains information on medical and dental treatment, cosmetic procedures, corporate wellness programs and retirement living in Las Vegas and southern Nevada. Also included are a directory of medical facilities and travel information.

Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman says that the recent opening of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health “has put Las Vegas on the map as a premier medical travel destination.”

Promoting domestic medical tourism with lots of marketing and brochures looks good, but not all cities or hospitals can deliver what individuals and employers want. Shai Gold of medical tourism agency International Triage, recently commented; “The challenge for most domestic destinations is that destinations typically do not offer a meaningful discount to the retail consumer. The wholesale client (self insured group, or insurance companies) does not need these guides as they already purchase healthcare services at substantial discounts via re-pricing networks. To attract retail consumers, healthcare providers will have to offer Medicaid level fee structures. Will the prices of medical procedures in Las Vegas and these other cities be competitive with what we can offer in Latin America, and the quality of care standardized in delivery and quality?“

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GLOBAL: Under 30s mix business and holiday travel and buy using social media

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NORWAY, USA, UK: Cancer patients travel from Norway and UK to USA for proton beam therapy

In an agreement with the Norway Health Authority, UF Proton Therapy Institute in Florida will treat both children and adults who have rare tumors in the nasal and sinus cavity, skull, and brain.

There are no medical centres in Norway that offer proton therapy, and for cancers in highly sensitive areas, proton therapy provides patients a superior treatment that also minimizes risk of damage to vision, hearing and brain function.

UF Proton Therapy Institute has a similar arrangement with the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, which has referred 200 children and adults for proton therapy in Jacksonville, Florida since 2010.

Nancy Mendenhall of UF Proton Therapy Institute explains, “It is significant for both the advancement of proton therapy and our institution to be selected by our colleagues in Norway to care for their patients. It signifies acceptance of proton therapy as the gold standard of care for many kinds of cancer and it recognizes our medical expertise caring for patients who have cancers that in some cases are one in a million.”

Since opening in August 2006, UF Proton Therapy Institute has achieved international recognition for excellence in delivering proton therapy. The pediatric program is the largest proton therapy practice in the world, with an average of 25 children on treatment daily.

Hundreds of people travel great distances to Jacksonville each year to have proton therapy that can give patients the best hope for cure and to go on to live a normal, healthy life.

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