What Is Driving the Growth in Medical Tourism?

Abstract

The current study directly surveyed consumers on their experiences and consideration of medical tourism to test the variables thought to impact medical tourism. The sample was deployed to qSample's international traveler panel. The survey was completed by 68.5% of participants. Over a third of the respondents said they had considered medical tourism; 15% had actually traveled to another country for medical care. Dental treatment was named most often as the type of treatment pursued in another country. Cost was mentioned most frequently as the reason for medical tourism. Prior international travel emerged as an important factor.

KEYWORDS:

• health care costs
• health care availability
• international travel
• medical tourism
• medical delays

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by Survey Analytics and qSample. Data for this research was collected via Survey Analytics Enterprise Research Platform and the population e-mailing list was provided by qSample at a highly reduced rate.

Notes

^a Dependent variable: Have you ever considered traveling outside of the country to receive medical care?

^a 77.0% of original grouped cases correctly classified.