What is a Medical Tourism Facilitator?

Sometimes referred to as medical tourism agencies, or a medical travel facilitator, these are companies – (some are mom and pop operations) that, as their name suggests, act as facilitators or middlemen for medical tourism patients engaging in medical tourism.

Medical Tourism Facilitators have played an important role in promoting the growth of medical tourism, and for many medical tourism patients, represent their first face to face contact with the concept of medical tourism.

Over the last three or four years, thousands of these companies have popped up, most sporting names synonymous with health and travel. They function much like a travel agency, requesting and obtaining passports, booking flights, and arranging a medical tourism patient’s lodging, transportation and tours. The key difference, of course, is that they also serve as the liaison or mediator between you and the international hospital and doctor. In effect, it is the facilitator’s job to repackage the medical provider’s service offering, make it more appealing, and then guide you along the medical tourism process. For those trying to decide whether or not to use a facilitator, it is important to weigh both the advantages and disadvantages they provide.

What are the Advantages of using a Medical Tourism Facilitator?

One-stop Medical Tourism shopping:

The convenience of being able to choose and access information about a variety of destinations, hospitals, procedures, and services. Users can come to a medical tourism facilitator’s website and request a price estimate for a particular procedure from several different hospitals or clinics, and then choose which provider better serves their needs and budget. In addition, once you have made a decision on where to travel, the medical tourism facilitator can usually take care of all your travel logistics such as flights, lodging, and transportation.

Established relationships with international providers:

Medical Tourism Facilitators, at least in theory, have already done the groundwork to make sure your chosen hospital and doctor are accredited and safe to work with. The best case scenario is that they have visited your chosen hospital and already have a system in place to make your Medical Tourism Trip process is a smooth one.

Convenient transfer of medical information:

Most medical tourism facilitators have a mechanism in place for quickly transferring your medical information including large files such as CT’s and MRI’s.

Language and culture barriers are usually not an issue:

Contacting some international  hospitals can be challenging due to time zone differences, language barriers, and cultural differences. As shown above, medical tourism facilitators already have the right contacts and a Medical Tourism Trip/medical tourism process in place with your international hospital. Additionally, as most medical tourism facilitators are located in North America, you will be dealing with people who speak your language and have a better understanding of the obstacles you face in order to get you from point A to point B.