The choice of facilitators in medical tourism

The impact of country image and patient cosmopolitanism on medical tourism

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact affective/cognitive country image, cosmopolitanism, and satisfaction with insurance have on patient willingness to go abroad for surgery. Patients are presented a scenario where they select having knee replacement surgery domestically, having to pay all co-pays and deductibles, or abroad (Mexico, India, Israel) for free surgery at a JCI certified hospital. Results indicate cosmopolitanism impacts patient perception of medical tourism whilst affective and cognitive country image exhibit varying levels of significance. This study contributes to the literature by assessing factors that impact patient likelihood to travel abroad for surgery.

Bouncing from the Covid-19 Pandemic: Response of an Online Medical Tourism Facilitator Platform

People have increasingly engaged in medical tourism to find effective medical treatments but more economical overseas. These travellers use the service of online Medical Tourism Facilitators (MTFs) in choosing and arranging medical trips. However, the Covid-19 pandemic and the ban on international travelling disrupted travel and thus seriously affected the tourism businesses, including MTFs. Businesses need to be resilient and pivot their business models to survive and bounce back from the crisis. However, it is less clear how MTFs navigate this Covid-19 pandemic. This paper adopts a case study to explain how an online MTF platform (Dental Departures) responds to the opportunities and challenges and examines how it pivots business models.

A Look at Collaborative Service Provision: Case for Cosmetic Surgery Medical Tourism at Korea for Chinese Patients

Consumers admiring the beauty standards of other countries are approaching cosmetic surgery medical tourism. This study examines the roles of hospitals and facilitating agents as the main entities of cosmetic surgery medical tourism. 334 Chinese patients who underwent cosmetic surgery in Korea were collected and structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data. The results show that a hospital's service quality in terms of tangibles, assurance, and empathy affect customers' attitudes toward medical tourism for cosmetic surgery, which in turn, influences satisfaction with medical tourism. More importantly, facilitating agents' service quality moderates the effects of hospitals' service quality dimensions on service satisfaction. Findings extend the existing literature on medical tourism by identifying the roles of hospitals and facilitating agents to enhance customers' attitudes and satisfaction with respect to collaborative service provision. Moreover, this research provides the first empirical evidence for the facilitating agents' role in determining satisfaction with medical tourism.

Bibliometrix analysis of medical tourism

Medical tourism is an expanding phenomenon. Scientific studies address the changes and challenges of the present and future trend. However, no research considers the study of bibliometric variables and area of business, management and accounting. This bibliometric analysis discovered the following elements: (1) The main articles are based on guest services, management, leadership principles applied, hotel services associated with healthcare, marketing variables and elements that guide the choice in medical tourism; (2) The main authors do not deal with tourism but are involved in various ways in the national health system of the countries of origin or in WHO; (3)cost-efficiency and analytical accounting linked to medical tourism structures and destination choices are not yet developed topics.