ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2011
Medical tourism services available to residents of the United States.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Aesthetic Surgery Tourism: The Real Cost of Discount Plastic Surgery.Aesthetic plastic surgery · 2026Article
- Assessing the performance of non-specialised private hospitals in Malaysia - an upper-middle-income medical tourism destination country using the Pabón-Lasso model.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Patients with Chronic Diseases Who Travel: Need for Global Access to Timely Health Care Data.Clinical epidemiology · 2022Article
- The Role of professional facilitators in cross-border assisted reproduction.Reproductive biomedicine & society online · 2018Article
- Opportunities for reproductive tourism: cost and quality advantages of Turkey in the provision of in-vitro Fertilization (IVF) services.BMC health services research · 2016Article
- Evidence on global medical travel.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2015Review
- Patient mobility in the global marketplace: a multidisciplinary perspective.International journal of health policy and management · 2014Article
- In the words of the medical tourist: an analysis of Internet narratives by health travelers to Turkey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2014Article
- Knowledge brokers, companions, and navigators: a qualitative examination of informal caregivers' roles in medical tourism.International journal for equity in health · 2013Article
- Health care experiences of U.S. retirees living in Mexico and Panama: a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2013Article
- Article
- Beyond "medical tourism": Canadian companies marketing medical travel.Globalization and health · 2012Article
- Canadian medical tourism companies that have exited the marketplace: Content analysis of websites used to market transnational medical travel.Globalization and health · 2011Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThere are growing reports of United States (US) residents traveling overseas for medical care, but empirical data about medical tourism are limited.
objectiveTo characterize the businesses and business practices of entities promoting medical tourism and the types and costs of procedures being offered. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS, AND OUTCOMES: Between June and August 2008, we conducted a telephone survey of all businesses engaged in facilitating overseas medical travel for US residents. We collected information from each company including: the number of employees; number of patients referred overseas; medical records security processes; destinations to which patients were referred; treatments offered; treatment costs; and whether patient outcomes were collected.
resultsWe identified 63 medical tourism companies and 45 completed our survey (71%). Companies had a mean of 9.8 employees and had referred an average of 285 patients overseas (a total of approximately 13,500 patients). 35 (79%) companies reported requiring accreditation of foreign providers, 22 (50%) collected patient outcome data, but only 17 (39%) described formal medical records security policies. The most common destinations were India (23 companies, 55%), Costa Rica (14, 33%), and Thailand (12, 29%). The most common types of care included orthopedics (32 companies, 73%), cardiac care (23, 52%), and cosmetic surgery (29, 66%). 20 companies (44%) offered treatments not approved for use in the US--most commonly stem cell therapy. Average costs for common procedures, CABG ($18,600) and knee arthroplasty ($10,800), were similar to previous reports.
conclusionsThe number of Americans traveling overseas for medical care with assistance from medical tourism companies is relatively small. Attention to medical records security and patient outcomes is variable and cost-savings are dependent on US prices. That said, overseas medical care can be a reasonable alternative for price sensitive patients in need of relatively common, elective medical procedures.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.