Medical tourism in India is paving the way for international patients to travel across the country border to get the best treatment for cosmetic, medical or wellness issues. India has been recently emerging as a major hub for health tourism and is considered among the best of the six travel destinations for medical care in the world.
The rapid growth of medical tourism in India has successfully put many states of the country on the world map for millions of patients across Asia, Africa, Europe and the rest to turn to the country for fulfilling their surgical treatments. The unrivalled knowledge, extensive experience, top-ranking doctors and premier hospitals ensure that health tourism in India dominates the market. Here, the patient can treat their medical complications at affordable packages.
Medical tourism is a term for the phenomenon of patients travelling to a foreign land in search of better medical treatment. As a result, medical tourism in India refers to people coming from all over the world to India to treat their medical conditions. Therefore, India is currently in the top three medical tourism destinations in the Asian continent, along with the top two ruling countries, Thailand and Singapore. It has been accounting for approximately 60% of the entire Asian revenue throughout the healthcare sector in the past few years.
There is an expectation for the medical tourism market in India to increase by around 20% in the coming years rapidly. So, it could be formally considered a promising sector of the country, poised to touch a collection of above USD 6 billion in recent times.
The reason for medical tourism in India in full bloom is its impressive medical reputation in delivering high-quality service providers at a much lower cost to tourists travelling from other countries to seek medical help. However, there need to be some steps to maximise the rate of medical tourism growth in India without any dip.
To increase the growth pace of medical tourism in India, it is important to put efforts into the development of some factors. This will help in fuelling the growth of medical care in India. The steps are fairly straightforward as there are various factors that can enable the rise in the influx of medical tourists from other nations seeking healthcare in India.
Over the past few years, India has been successful in registering a positive growth rate of medical tourism owing to its sheer efforts to handle almost all types of situations. Therefore, market insights hint that the demand forecast for treatment in the country is likely to increase at a vigorous rate of 19% CAGR in the coming years.
The medical sector is currently trending on a higher growth path in and around India. For India to establish credibility of being a destination for medical tourism requires a world-class medical ecosystem as well as command over performing superlative healthcare procedures. The following are the top factors that can empower the Indian medical tourism market. So, upon considering them, they would work as a medical tourist magnet for expanding the business at 2X speed.
In order to reach the No. 1 spot in medical travelling destinations, there is a requirement for significant investments in the development of the healthcare industry and advanced technology. This will enhance the attractiveness of the country among international patients.
Medical tourists will spend maximum hours in hotels and guest house that needs disinfection to avoid the risk of further infectious disease from such places. Thus, adequate facilities and proper infrastructure is a truly essential area that needs development in the tourism industry. The Government of India is also offering financial assistance to medical tourism service providers to boost an intricate nexus of healthcare facilities for potential tourists.
Here is a list of all the factors that can contribute towards making India the hub of the most preferred medical treatment.
With healthcare technologies and advanced infrastructure, India can leave other developed nations at par. In this next crowning nation of medical tourism, patients can expect to receive high-quality medical facilities and assistance to cure their condition.
Most of the developed countries, especially in the West, charge extremely high rates of treatment costs for conducting significant procedures. These procedures may include orthopaedic treatments, cardiac surgeries and more.
When seeking the same treatment in India, patients of different medical conditions may obtain the same quality treatment at around a 50% reduced rate. The best part is that there is no compromising on the quality of the treatment received.
With a much lower cost of hospitals, patients coming to India can also easily afford better medical services. These may include post-operative care or treatment such as extended stay in the hospital during the period of recovery as well as rehabilitation. Indeed, these can be otherwise extremely expensive in their own country.
Another huge factor that will contribute to increasing the number of medical tourists obtaining medical treatment in India is when the patients receive immediate medical attention to their concerns. In their home country or other countries, the patient typically has to wait for a long time to get the needed treatment.
This is more likely to happen to patients dealing with chronic health conditions. They have to wait, depending on their medicines in the home country, before getting a scope for operation.
India has top-class doctors, surgeons and healthcare professionals on board. All of them have dedicatedly spent a good amount of time in their study and practice abroad. Consequently, they are always in sync with the most advanced and latest medical technologies and treatment procedures to provide them in India. Moreover, it is important to keep on increasing the number of world-class healthcare professionals to maintain the same quality treatment.
This will eventually attract more patients and lead to an increase in medical tourism in India. Without the availability of widely skilled, trained and acclaimed medical professionals, the empowerment of Indian medical tourism is tough.
Medical tourism companies in India assist in offering Indian medical facilities for patients visiting from different parts of the world. In accordance with the hospitals, they lay over a well-thought plan for medical tourists visiting India. This plan is inclusive of all the comprehensive services starting from receiving a medical visa, arranging appointments and preparing essential documents. In addition, the customised approach makes sure to provide a comfortable stay by facilitating transportation to get follow-up check-ups, post-operative medical care and also sightseeing.
With the measure to grant special provisions for medical visas, tourists can travel to India to get medical care. The number of countries for which this measure has been available is expanding.
Also, there is a feedback mechanism that works in obtaining testimonials from patients travelling to the nation for meeting their medical purposes. This is a one-stop portal that is likely to add to the benefit and give credible information about everything vital for medical tourists travelling to India.
Since the aim is to take India and position it as a global hub for healthcare and wellness tourism, the new initiative should allow foreigners seeking medical treatment to locate a list of all the hospitals in India. This helps them to check the availability and provides them with the choice of treatments via a one-step online portal.
Here everyone can get a one-stop service that ranges from visa applications, grievance redressals, and feedback to the cost of the treatment package. Along with these, it also aims to provide a database of the entire healthcare professionals like physicians, surgeons, nurses and pharmacists.
Also, there is a separate section where the medical professionals can specify the nation in which they have an interest in offering services. Following this, India can diversify the operation by assigning doctors to even travel abroad to provide treatment to the patients.
Another factor that needs proper management is the opportunity to grab in selling health insurance to foreign patients. This can generate a massive $9 billion additional revenue from the patients’ inflow to the country.
One of the major reasons for the successful future of medical tourism in India includes the difference in the cost factor. The cost of healthcare facilities is much more affordable without even compromising the standard quality of treatment.
Millions of patients come to India and seek treatment for their medical conditions. Among them, many patients explain how they get the same quality of treatment and services in India at a good amount of reduction in comparison to the Western world.
India has a history of being a land of natural medicinal values that sets long back in time. The healthcare industry of India has the potential to offer a wide range of traditional and modern forms of medical treatment. This sets the nation apart from the rest of the world. Firstly, India is growing in the number of world-class physicians and advanced super facility hospitals that ensures the treatment of multiple diseases at fractional rates in comparison to the others.
Moreover, the key advantage of India is the cost at which it can fantastically deliver top-notch quality medical treatments offering it a unique position in the world medical sector. Subsequently, this helps to unlock the potential wave of medical tourism in India.
People are constantly in quest of seeking better treatment options at a cheaper rate. India is a promising country that has been making its presence firmly in this sector. Previously dominated by the nations like the USA and Singapore among the other developed nations, India is also rapidly enhancing in the medical field to get the command over popular treatments for health conditions, including Neurology, Cardiology and Orthopaedics.
The major cities of the country are also well connected by various modes of transportation. So, all the leading global companies of airlines operating their services in India are also helping medical tourism in India to boom. Moreover, there has been a relaxation of the visa norms and implementation of a new E-visa policy in recent years. Hence, this is leading India to put effort towards the growth of its medical tourism proactively.
Simultaneously, the growth of the pharmaceutical industry and insurance market, cheap and easy travelling, along with improvement in the medical facilities work together to make India one of the most preferred healthcare tourism destinations around the globe.
The future of the Indian medical tourism industry looks better and brighter than ever before. This is justifiable to say that patients around the world can get better medical facilities and treatments but is finding it a challenge to gain access to a suitable form of quality healthcare.
There is great potential for India to understand and, at the same time, aggressively advance to attract patients from other countries of the world, including America and Europe.
There is hardly any secret in the fact that India comes to the salvage in restarting a better push in medical treatment. As treatment partners to medical tourists across the globe are coming in favour of modification in the medical sector, India is marking its presence in every continent of the globe.
In the coming decade, India will not only save millions of lives, it will also generate jobs for thousands of skilled professionals. Dania Medicare Solutions provide an umbrella to take care of every detail of healthcare and treatment. Therefore, the medical tourist can expect to get a smooth medical procedure throughout the treatment phase in the country.
References
https://tourism.gov.in/wellness-medical-tourism
https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/travel/medical-tourism-in-india-top-destinations-scenarios-and-all-you-need-to-know-101668163467932-amp.html
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/india-to-emerge-as-a-hotspot-for-medical-tourism/
Written by
Shafiq Ahmad Khan
Founder & CEO
Dania Medicare Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
