The Medical Tourism Association recently participated as a major sponsor of and speakers at the Los Angeles Association of Health Underwriters (LAAHU) conference in Los Angeles California. The event was expected to have approximately 800 attendees from the health insurance industry in the Los Angeles and California area.
MTA Members WorldMed Assist, Premiere Medical Travel and Patients without Borders joined participated as speakers and exhibitor in the MTA Pavilion. Our purpose was to educate the health insurance agents, consultants and insurance companies in California and the Los Angles area about medical tourism, which proved to be very successful.
MTA met their objectives and we walked away many “hot’ leads. This event was very important for the MTA, because it was in Los Angeles and allowed us to develop many strong relationships in Los Angeles in anticipation for our upcoming conference there in October.
We are only five months away from the Medical Tourism Association’s annual conference, the World Medical Tourism and Global Health Congress, which takes place October 26-28th, 2009. As each day goes by getting closer to the medical tourism convention and exposition, there is a lot of reason for excitement.
The industry has changed and significantly grown since the MTA’s 1st conference in San Francisco last September. Interest in the industry has grown significantly, but not just from new hospitals and countries trying to attract patients, but also from international insurance companies, governments, and also US employers that are moving forward with implementing medical tourism.
Almost every health insurance carrier in the US is implementing medical tourism or in the research phase of learning about implementing medical tourism and understanding how to best be creative with their existing health insurance plans. When this happens, the flood gates for medical tourism will open, and there will be a significant increase in the number of patients traveling internationally.
While the United States represents the largest current emerging opportunity for medical tourism, our annual medical tourism convention in October will have a heavy focus on other medical tourism hotspots such as the Middle East, Gulf Coast Countries, Africa, and Russia and the former Russian states. We expect a strong representation from these countries and those involved with sending patients around the world for healthcare.
The MTA is bringing in top Ministries of Health and Tourism together with other dignitaries who are involved in creating international healthcare programs for their countries. This includes countries from not only provider countries, but from consumer countries such as Russia and former Russian States, the Middle East, China and Japan. We have also put together a list of some of the best speakers who are healthcare leaders from health insurance companies, governments and hospitals.
While last year’s medical tourism conference had almost 850 attendees, this year’s medical tourism conference in Los Angeles will see a significant and much larger number. We specifically chose Los Angeles as the destination for our conference because it is not only a world famous hub for medical care and medical tourism, but it has one of the largest concentration of “buyers”, health insurance carriers, employers, and health insurance agents in the United States, but also because of the hospitals.
Some of the nation’s top hospitals are located in Los Angeles and site tours will be provided as a pre-conference event such as Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital, two of which were ranked in the top 20 hospitals in America by the U.S. News and World Report.
We are also excited about the venue. The Hyatt was recently remodeled less than a year ago, and is an absolutely beautiful hotel, in the heart of one of the nicest areas in Los Angeles, with the movie studios and Beverly Hills only minutes away. For those attendees bringing their families there are many exciting things to do including Disney Land and Universal Studios to tours into some of the world’s best wine country and vineyards.
Los Angeles offers many exciting tourism options for all of our attendees, including great restaurants, shopping and nightlife. Tours will be organized by the Congress. To learn more please go to www.medicaltourismcongress.com.
The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza is a large convention hotel that will allow us to have up to 2,000 attendees in our main seminar and session room. This does not include our breakout session and networking rooms, which will accommodate even more people. Having our conference in Los Angeles will allow us to accommodate more people and accommodate for the massive growth that the medical tourism industry has experienced in the last year.
We have created almost 20 intense advanced educational workshops that take place pre-conference to provide attendees with the knowledge to obtain a significant return on investment (ROI) in medical tourism and at the conference.
We expect to have up to 30 seminars and sessions during the conference which will take place where the last conference left off, allowing delegates to further their knowledge of medical tourism, global health, investing in healthcare infrastructure more.
The one-on-one networking sessions have been developed through the consulted expertise and computer technology to provide better turnout, increased opportunities and the ability to attend all important general sessions.
Last year in San Francisco 3,000 one-on-one networking sessions were scheduled, and we anticipated up to 5,000 this year. Where else in the world can you meet and network with people to accomplish in 3 days what would take you years to accomplish otherwise?
World Medical Tourism & Global Health Congress in conjunction with the Medical Tourism Association will be organizing a special event and reception during the evening of the pre-conference workshops so that those delegates attending the workshops will be able to meet and network with executives from the US health insurance industry in a private event.
Delegates fro the Monterrey Congress will also be invited. This year we are anticipating bringing in as many as 400 “buyers” who are interested in implementing medical tourism and meeting new hospitals, clinics, healthcare providers and destinations to send patients to.
We have also significantly expanded the exposition and exhibiting space. While last year in San Francisco the exposition area was sold out with 53 exhibit booths, this year we have a large dedicated exhibition area which will accommodate up to 120 exhibit booths, and with the way interest is going, we expect the exhibition and exposition hall to be sold out by August.
For more information on the World Medical Tourism & Global Health Congress go to www.medicaltourismcongress.com
Where else in the world can you meet and network with people and accomplish in 3 days what would take you years to otherwise accomplish.
