To tap into the ever growing medical tourism market, destinations need to leverage key elements that are crucial for building a sustainable medical tourism destination, including government support, public-private partnerships, tourism planning, human resources training, accreditation and certification, and marketing and promotion.

With the Certified Medical Travel Professional program, become a highly valuable and recognized expert in the industry, providing relevant and exceptional solutions for medical tourists at each touchpoint of the medical travel patient care journey. To register for the CMTP certification, click here.

Expect in the future an increasing number of patients to look for accreditation or certification as the determinant in selecting a medical travel agent. Certification assures patients that a facilitator has been vetted by a globally recognized third-party accreditor, affirming that the facilitator has the required protocols, processes, and staff training to deliver a safe and high-quality treatment journey and experience.

In this interview with the Medical Tourism Magazine recently, Juan Luis Giraldo, MD, Medical Director of Inser Group, one of the leading fertility treatment providers in Latin America, speaks about how the company is expanding its frontiers and driving growth in fertility travel. 

In this interview, Dr. Ariel Ortiz, Medical Director of the Center, discusses his contributions to the field of bariatric surgery, the rise of bariatric surgery services for international patients, and how accreditation has set the center’s medical tourism program apart and built trust with local patients and medical tourists from around the world.

Trust is the new metric for the new normal of medical travel. If a health buyer or payer does not entrust their overall health - mental, physical, and emotional - to your hands during the entire care continuum, they will not be scheduling that flight to your destination

The rules are gradually changing for medical travel, and as the industry stages a comeback after the dark years of the pandemic, medical programs that have a third-party validation of their policies, procedures, and processes will see a greater long-term sustainable growth in medical travel, as medical travelers have now experienced a paradigm shift in what they consider to be “health.” Stakeholders must keep adapting to these changes and position themselves to be key players in the industry or lose out to those who do.

The coronavirus pandemic has induced a shift in healthcare needs that wlll disrupt the medical tourism ecosystem. New strategies are therefore needed to meet the new metrics of success in medical tourism

The last one-and-a-half years have forced many individuals to reexamine their health and lifestyle choices, and this shift will influence medical travel decisions in the post-COVID-19 era. Here are the top three pull factors that will drive medical tourism success in the new normal:

Cleveland Clinic has been awarded “Accreditation with Excellence” for its medical travel services by Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) for a second consecutive term.‍

Contracting healthcare to Centers of Excellence is not a new model, employers have been leveraging these programs to provide quality healthcare at lower costs to their employees. However, with the economic downturn and pent-up demand for healthcare triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the paradigm of health will shift toward this model - more self-funded employers will adopt this healthcare plan to minimize healthcare spendings while optimizing clinical outcomes for their employees

As travel restrictions begin to lift; however, patients will begin to seek medical and dental care at destinations and organizations where they feel safe.

As travel is slowly returning to normal, medical travelers have new expectations from a medical tourist destination - these patients now not only seek quality and affordability of medical care but also a medical travel destination that has put in place adequate measures to safeguard their health, given the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, has been awarded Accreditation for a three-year term by the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) Program for its Medical Travel Services Program.

As healthcare spending in the U.S. continues to rise, employers are increasingly turning to direct contracting with Centers of Excellence (COE’s) in order to lower healthcare costs and provide competitive insurance benefits to employees