Safety Protocol for Medical Tourists

There are sensible ways to decrease any risk of complications but are we implementing them?  Medical complications and misunderstandings not only add stress to the patient, but COSTS to the overall savings everyone thought would be secured!

Something as simple non-sterile bandage changes can greatly increase the chance of a complication and an extended, more costly and more stressful stay.  Now there will be extra hotel nights, airline change fees, more doctor or even hospital visits, medications and therapies to treat them.

How many in the industry realize the patient needs the following additional support: social, linguistic, cultural, logistical, even psychological as they are forced to stay and recover and sometimes suffer depression just from the anesthesia.  How many facilitators can really effectively provide or ensure this for their patients from 4000 miles away?

Good Surgery Recovery Requires Post-op Care

Appropriate post op medical support and daily monitoring and care, once discharged from the hospital, MUST be an integral part of a Medical Tourism experience.  In fact, the AMA, ASPS and FACS all endorse this in their guidelines for medical tourism, even though (and bear with me as I chuckle) we don’t recognize it, mandate it, include it and rarely even OFFER it in our own domestic medical system, and definitely not at a reasonably attainable cost!

Perhaps for this reason, patients, facilitators and insurance companies don’t grasp the need for it since we seem to do “quite fine” without it for procedures performed locally.  But do we, really?

An article entitled Aftercare Lacking says medical tourism survey, published March 20, 2008 in the Yorkshire Post  claims rates of 20% for medical tourists!  That should intimidate anyone thinking of going or sending a patient abroad, but it should also be a call to arms.

For the FEW of us that provide our patients with medically appropriate aftercare and support in the destination country, this complication rate is highly exaggerated and totally unnecessary if we are managing our patient properly and creating partnerships with highly specialized and reliable (eventually credentialed/accredited) in-country Concierge services.

Medical Cost Escalates Without Proper IN-COUNTRY Management

Who will assure and be responsible for patient support on behalf of the insurance company in sending their patient abroad and WHO must pay for it? How many facilitators and insurance companies now interested in sending patients abroad have tried and true chain of information exchange and damage control once in the destination country?

Is the medical tourism facilitator or insurance company rep able to call the patient, doctor or hospital, or other foreign care provider, hotel, nurse, transportation person, etc., via an international call and be able to efficiently and quickly handle any problems?  Or will they assume the hotel staff will handle these problems or the staff at the hospital  will – just because they are “JCI accredited?”

After eight years operating IN the country with my patients, planning everything, I am still surprised how little things ALWAYS come up and can quickly escalate to HUGE things with logistical delays, language barriers, miscommunication, cultural nuances and simply: The more people involved in message relaying, the more chance for confusion.

How to Avoid  Complications with Surgery

Driven by the desire to operate honestly, safely and ethically and provide the best experience possible for my patients, I pioneered an organized system and working model of a TOTAL, medically appropriate, patient support system that recognizes, addresses and anticipates every one of these needs.

It has not only fostered much respect for our medical thoroughness in the pre-op preparations, but greatly reduced the incidence of post-op complications by adequately and appropriately “managing” the patient EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

This serves to raise overall patient satisfaction with their total “experience” abroad which includes, keeping costs low and within initial budget whenever possible…which should definitely interest insurance providers trying to guarantee themselves these savings. In spite of my patients’ high-risk/complication-prone profile, the care protocol used resulted in a complication rate of less than four percent and happy, satisfied patients who felt attended to and supported through their whole stay.

Insurance Companies and Medical Tourism

To be medically and ethically responsible and indeed, successful, in this ever-burgeoning medical tourism market, the WHOLE ENCHILADA needs to be considered when “constructing” a safe haven to where you want to refer patients.  Let’s face it, if the patients that are sent abroad by their insurance companies don’t come back happy, medical tourism for insurance companies will be very short lived.

Read Part One of the series:   Message to Medical Tourists  … and to the Medical Tourism Industry that would serve them.