Rising costs of insurance policies led to more individuals considering medical tourism

Time has changed and with time its various notions. 60 is the new 40. Age is no more a hindrance in the lives of people,they want to live and experience everything defying the bars of age. And for prolonged lives people are becoming health conscious. Initially getting insurance policies seemed to be the safest bet. But with changing lifestyles and sedentary habits, the risks of diseases have also increased in manifolds and therefore the premiums on health insurance too.

The insurance companies consider every detail of an individuals life such as-History of medical issues, Ill health in past, Age, Weight, Occupation, amount of travel, smoking, drinking.On basis of the aforementioned factors,they advice an insurance policy considering all the health problems which can arise during a persons lifetime. But this policy most of the time proves to be a really costly affair for a person. And the expenditure is many times more than the actual cost.

Therefore, there has been a paradigm shift towards other green pastures such as “medical tourism”. Medical tourism is the practise of a patient “outsourcing” health-care services to an area outside of his/her home country. Along with availing medical services, the medical tourist can also involve themselves in some leisure activities in foreign lands. In medical tourism, patients have an advantage of travelling to foreign lands where they can avail treatment at a low price.

India is gathering fame in the medical tourism markets. The Indian advantage lies in the fact that the cost of treatment is comparatively very low in India, A kidney transplant which costs about $2,00,000 in the US is performed at $20,000 in India. Along with the low cost, large pool of efficient doctors and surgeons in India and less waiting periods have led a large amount of people from west and middle east to travel to India.

Patients are finding it better to spend money on treatment on foreign lands rather than getting involved in the costly quagmire of insurance policies. Medical tourism has come a long way and it will continue to grow by leaps and bounds.