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How to make money investing in the medical travel industry

By now, you’ve heard all the hype about the potential growth of the medical travel industry and how US patients are fleeing the country to get affordable care. Unfortunately, the experts agree, that there are few reliable statistics about the size and growth of the market, there are no common definitions of a medical traveler, comparisons of revenues and costs are hard to make, and there remain persistent, nagging barriers to widespread adoption by patients, payers and physicians.

That said, investors are still clinging to the promise of big returns fueled by patients losing their health benefits because of high unemployment, the aging population requiring more units of care and exploding costs of healthcare. If you think the medical travel industry is set to explode, there are some areas of investment to consider:

Foreign Healthcare infrastructure

  • Hospitals and systems
    Ambulatory surgery centers
    Clinical labs and imaging centers
    Disease specific treatment facilities like cancer centers, stem cell centers, etc
  • Foreign Travel and hospitality infrastructure

  • Hotels and Surgical Hotels
    Spas
    Airport development

  • Tools and support companies

  • Players in global healthcare information exchange
    Data analytics and business intelligence
    Quality, price and value determinations
    Companies offering alternative pricing mechanisms

  • Supporting global healthcare insurance and travel products

  • Trip cancellation
    Follow up care
    Emergency evacuation
    Professional liability
    Infectious disease management
    Geopolitical risk insurance
  • Firms in the medical travel supply chain

  • Travel medicine clinics
    Medical travel facilitators and specialty travel agents
    Medical concierge ground operators
    Currency exchange risk managers

  • Expatriate retirement health cities and communities

    Like other industry sectors, gold, for example, you can invest in the product itself, the people who create the product, or investments that pools risks, like mutual funds or exchange traded funds.

    Look for companies in markets where the supply of care does not meet the demands of a growing middle class, that provide products and services delivering low, cost high volume care, and that provide platforms and infrastructure designed to reduce transaction costs for billing and collecting and value-based information.


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    South Korean Hospitals – World Class Physicians and Modern Technology at Great Value

    Arriving at the pristine airport and being efficiently whisked through customs gives visitors the first inkling why medical tourism in South Korea has achieved so much in such a short period of time – receiving over 60,000 patients in 2009, 40 percent of which are from the US. Global healthcare being a key economic driver led to the establishment of The Korean Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) to oversee this sector and to support international patients.  KHIDI ensures that participating hospitals are registered, medical outcomes are reported and there is even a  multilingual medical call center specifically to help  foreign patients, if needed.
    South Korea does not stray from its reputation as a technological leader with “slip-less hospitals” that are paperless, chartless and filmless, using rather, RFID chips, completely electronic medical records (EMR) and telemedicine. When hospitals commonly utilize the third generation of da Vinci Surgical System, fourth generation of CyberKnife and where 64 slice CT scans are de rigueur, surgeons pride themselves on using a laparoscopic solution first. Even Dr. Kim of St. Mary’s Hospital was a pioneer in this arena and published his initial findings about minimally invasive options for colorectal cancer seven years before this method received the nod from The New England Journal of Medicine.
    Significant inroads have been made in living donor organ transplantations for not only the liver, but also kidney, pancreas and bone marrow transplants since it is important in Confucian culture to preserve the body whole. Highly specialized developments have also been made for cancer treatments and outcomes for stomach, liver and cervical cancers are higher than those in the US. Other areas of specialization include spinal treatment, joint/rheumatism treatment, health screenings, dental care, infertility treatments and integrated traditional Korean medicine.

    Cancer 5 Year Survival Rates
    Site Korea  Percentage (2003-07) USA Percentage (1999-2005)
    Stomach 61.2 25.7
    Liver 21.7 13.1
    Cervix 80.5 70.6
    Colon and rectum 68.7 65.2
    Thyroid 98.8 96.9
    Breast 89.5 89.1
    Lung 16.7 15.6
    Pancreas 7.6 5.5

    (Source KHIDI/ December 2010)


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