Financing
Medical tourism attracts many people interested in financing their medical treatment abroad. Generally speaking, there are financing options for those participating medical tourism with good credit in their home country. Although EMT does not offer financing, EMT has a list of those resources to share with its clients participating in medical tourism.
Short Facts
Medical tourism is not a new phenomenon. It has been around for decades. However, many more people are taking advantage of it.
Medical tourism has long been practiced by people of North Africa and the Middle East, who visit medical facilities in Bavaria.
Medical tourism has long been practiced by famous Hollywood people visiting spas and clinics in Switzerland.
Medical tourism is being promoted by governments and businesses in many parts of the world.
Medical tourism is growing each year as cost in the US climb and waiting lines in the UK and Canada grow longer.
Which Doctor?
European Medical Tourist (EMT) provides elite surgeons. We look doctors who are leaders in their field. This means authoring publications, heads of the department or have thriving practices, and who have a PhD and professorship in addition to their MD degrees. These elite surgeon focus on advanced medicine not yet fully-available in the US. We also observe them in the OR. We are looking at their manual skill, scrub nurses and how well they are organized and work together as a team. After all it is the surgeon that has the primary affect on the patient, not the hospitals or any medical marketing group. Learn about quality in medicine with EMT.
Which Hospital?
Second only to the selection of the surgeon is the hospital. Of course, hospitals are a composite of the administrative practices, medical staff, and equipment. We look for highly-disciplined staff, cleanliness and enforced infection-control procedures. Good recordkeeping is also an essential part of patient care. After all, medication errors are chief component hospital injuries.
Why use a Patient Advocate?
Patient advocates are good idea even with domestic medicine. With reports of 100,000 deaths per year due to medical mistakes in the US alone, there is little doubt that an experienced patient advocate would be helpful. However, traveling for a medical procedure, whether it is to another location in the patient's home country or foreign country does add some additional challenges. Having someone who knows the places and people involved can be very useful. It is really a plus when the advocate has experience with the patient's medical procedure. Experience matters.