Medical Tourism in Latin America

There has always been a large number of patients from other countries who fly to the U.S. for health care and surgeries that are unavailable in their own. However, this traditional flow of medical tourists has been reversed in the twenty-first century and the number of American patients leaving the country for health treatments in foreign lands is still on the rise. Patients who travel to another country to seek healthcare are referred to as medical tourists. The term arose because more Americans have been seeking less expensive surgical, dental, or cosmetic procedures while vacationing abroad. Between 2007 and 2017, the number of Americans who traveled abroad for health care rose from approximately 750,000 to over 1.4 million (Dalen & Alpert, 2019). Patients Beyond Borders, a medical travel guidebook published in 2007 and also updated as an online website, has predicted approximately 1.9 million Americans will travel outside of the U.S. for health care in 2019. Top ten destinations for these medical tourists include several countries in Asia such as India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, but this article will focus on countries in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean that attract the most medical tourists from the U.S.

The most obvious reason for medical tourists to travel abroad is to avoid the high cost of healthcare in the U.S. The fragmented healthcare system of the country has pushed many patients to search for a more affordable alternative (Bolotin, 2018). American patients have found alternatives in various locations, as close as border towns between the U.S. and Mexico, where there is an intensive concentration of dentists who are benefiting from the dental crisis in the U.S. (Faulkner, 2018). Medical tourists are also attracted by the opportunity of receiving health care while enjoying a vacation in a tropical climate. Costa Rica, also known for its affordable and excellent dental services, is one of the top ten medical tourism destinations in the world. Yet Costa Rica has also suffered from an internal "brain drain" when medical professionals lean towards a more profitable private sector and serve more foreign than local patients (Lee, 2012). Still, the Costa Rican government has encouraged the growth of the industry for economic reasons. Medical tourism brokers offer travel packages to American patients that include health treatment, hospitality, transportation, and other accommodations for extra travel needs with prices lower than what the exact same medical care would cost in the U.S. (Warf, 2010). It is not surprising that more and more cities and countries in the world are adopting medical tourism as a legitimate industry and encouraging its market to grow within their territories.

Another cause of medical tourism is that some patients must travel for care because of limited care availability in the country. Not specific to the Latin American countries, but in general, such a large number of patients around the world need immediate surgeries or transplants that there are entire air ambulance flight systems to cater specifically to this type of travel. The last cause of growing medical tourism cases is the availability of higher quality medical service in Latin American countries. Brazil is especially famous for its highly skilled doctors in cosmetic surgery (Herrick, 2007). The country has gained an international reputation for excellence in cosmetic plastic surgery because some residency programs are included within its public health system. These residency programs has attracted overseas surgeons, provides ample opportunities for training in cosmetic techniques, and creates a clinical environment that favors experimentation with innovative techniques. Professor Edmonds at the University of Amsterdam explains in his article on medical tourism to Brazil that the phenomenon is not simply market-driven but how “more complex local and transnational dynamics” contribute to demand of an elective medical procedure (Edmonds, 2011). Reproductive tourism, a subcategory of medical tourism, has made Chile, Mexico, and Argentina popular destinations for patients who seek more affordable fertility treatments and liberal laws (Smith et al., 2010). In 2013, Argentina passed a law subsidizing in vitro fertilization (IVF) for all, regardless of sexual orientation, marital status or economic background. The country now joins Spain and India as one of the top destinations for so-called “fertility tourists” (Lahrichi, 2016). Latin American countries are now branding themselves as better-equipped providers of certain health care services to participate in the growing market of medical tourism.

However, this new, rapidly expanding industry is not without its negative effects. In the U.S., the downsides of medical tourism in Latin America are often emphasized. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention begins its article on medical tourism with a warning phrase, “Receiving medical care abroad can be risky” and suggests ways to minimize those risks on its online website (2016). First and foremost, there is a communication problem where the language barrier between patients and the medical service providers could suffer from an increased chance of miscommunication. Antibiotic resistance has been a global problem and could be worsened by the globalization of health care and recipients of foreign medical treatments (Hoffman et al., 2015). Also, flying or traveling in general after surgery can increase the risk of blood clots. Counterfeit or poor quality medication that results from a lack of information for foreign patients is another danger that cannot be properly addressed by the U.S. government outside of its jurisdiction.

There has been an effort to minimize this problem since the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals began to evaluate, inspect, and accredit hospitals outside of the U.S. in 1998. Some scholars have pointed out the credibility of online resources from medical tourism companies arguing that their websites fail to sufficiently address the risks associated with medical tourism and provide a partial picture of the industry with biased patient testimonials through their online platform (Hohm & Snyder, 2015). Yet, the number of patients willing to travel to Latin American countries is increasing annually, in search of high-quality and affordable medical services, just a short flight away.

Related articles

• Health and Migration along the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Universal Health Care: the Costa Rican System

Additional Resources

Connell, J. (2013). Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification. Tourism Management, 34: 1-13.

Goodrich, J. N. (1993). Socialist Cuba: A Study of Health Tourism. Journal of Travel Research, 32(1): 36-41.

Viladrich, A. & Baron-Faust, R. (2014). Medical tourism in tango paradise: The internet branding of cosmetic surgery in Argentina. Annals of Tourism Research, 45: 116-131.

References

Bolotin, C. (2018, February 22). Why I Prefer to Get My Health Care in Latin America: Personal medical experience from an expat entering his 60s. Next Avenue. Retrieved from https://www.nextavenue.org/prefer-get-health-care-latin-america/

CDC. (2016, December 5). Medical Tourism. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/features/medicaltourism/index.html

Dalen, J. E. & Alpert, J. S. (2019). Medical Tourists: Incoming and Outgoing. The American Journal of Medicine, 132(1): 9-10.

Edmonds, A. “Almost Invisible Scars”: Medical Tourism to Brazil. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 36(2): 297-302.

Faulkner, B. (2018, October 31). The Rise of Medical Tourism and What It Means for Healthcare. Healthcare in America. Retrieved from https://healthcareinamerica.us/the-rise-of-medical-tourism-and-what-it-means-for-healthcare-767f228d3727

Herrick, D. M. (2007). Medical Tourism: Global Competition in Health Care. National Center for Policy Analysis, Policy Report No. 304.

Hoffman, S. J. et al. (2015). An international legal framework to address antimicrobial resistance. Bulletin World Health Organization, 93(2): 66.

Hohm, C. & Snyder, J. (2015). “It Was the Best Decision of My Life”: a thematic content analysis of former medical tourists’ patient testimonials. BMC Medical Ethics, 16(8).

Lahrichi, K. (2016, October 5). Watch: In Argentina, a Boom in Fertility Tourism. U.S. News. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-10-05/watch-in-argentina-a-boom-in-fertility-tourism

Lee, C. A. (2012). Socialized Medicine Meets Private Industry: Medical Tourism in Costa Rica. In J. R. Hodges, L. Turner, and A. M. Kimball (Eds.), Risks and Challenges in Medical Tourism (pp.87-108). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Smith, E., Behrmann, J., Martin C., and Williams-Jones, B. Reproductive tourism in Argentina: clinic accreditation and its implications for consumers, health professionals and policy makers. Developing World Bioethics, 10(2): 59-69.

Warf, B. (2010). Do you know the way to San Jose? Medical tourism in Costa Rica. Journal of Latin American Geography, 9(1): 51-66.