India is now a medical tourism destination

After becoming the pharmacy of the world, India has emerged as a medical tourism hub on the global healthcare map.

Visiting delegates of the One Earth, One Health: Advantage Healthcare India 2023, a G20 co-branded event held on May 3, 2023, appreciated and applauded India’s quality healthcare infrastructure and human resources as they entered into MoUs for close collaborations with private hospitals in the country. These MoUs include clinic collaboration, clinical research, capacity building, medical value travel to India, helping in developing nursing expertise, teaching, and much more.

At the G20 Health Working Group Meeting held in Goa, India stood tall as it was acknowledged as one of the leading destinations for medical value tourism. With over 1.4 million people visiting the country for treatment last year, India has been ranked the tenth in the last medical tourism index. India offers a holistic approach with yoga, Ayurveda, and other traditional practices.

India has over the years become a popular destination for medical tourism due to its advanced healthcare facilities, skilled healthcare professionals, and lower costs of medical treatments, compared to developed countries. The India medical tourism market offers various medical services, including cardiac surgery, organ transplantation, cosmetic surgery, dental care, and traditional medicine. The Indian government implemented various policies and initiatives to promote medical tourism, such as streamlined visa processes and developing specialized medical tourism zones. In addition, India includes a large pool of English-speaking doctors and nurses, which makes it easier for patients from English-speaking countries to communicate with their healthcare providers.

For centuries, India has been recognized as the destination for ancient knowledge and wellness. Different streams of medicine like Unani, Naturopathy, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa, Homoeopathy, Yoga, and meditation are now acknowledged around the world.

The government has been making efforts to boost traditional medicines for international tourists visiting India for treatments under Ayush methods. Earlier this year, the Ayush ministry had signed a memorandum of understanding with the tourism ministry’s India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) to work together for the promotion of medical value travel (MVT) in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine. The budget allocation for the Ministry of Ayush has been increased from Rs 2845.8 crore to Rs 3647.5 crore, recording a 28-percent increase.

As the country finds itself as a global health destination, medical tourism estimated at USD 6 billion in 2022 is expected to climb to USD 13 billion by 2026. Most of the tourists who travel to India for healthcare currently are from Asian or African countries, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Indonesia, and Kenya, among others. Top medical tourism destinations are Mumbai, Chennai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore.

Complex procedures like liver transplants and hip replacements have been attracting a vast overseas clientele in the recent past. Private hospital chains like Apollo Hospitals, Max Healthcare, Fortis, Wockhardt, and now Reliance, offer medical services of international standards. They also have been investing heavily in R&D, like using robotics in surgery.

The medical tourism industry in India gets maximum patients for heart surgery, knee transplant, cosmetic surgery, and dental care as the cost of treatment in India is considered to be the lowest in Asia, much lower than Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. A breast cancer procedure varies between Rs 700,000 and Rs 1.2 million in India, compared to about Rs 4.5 million in the US. Cosmetic dental procedures cost half the price. Being one of the fastest adopters of emerging healthcare technologies, Indian has been able to optimize processes, and reduce healthcare costs. In addition to big data analytics and artificial intelligence, the healthcare sector has adopted robotics for process automation. Healthcare providers have benefited from these technologies by gaining insights into health information and changing patients’ needs, enabling them to design patient-centered interventions. The Indian healthcare system is expected to increase its adoption of robotics and enhance care delivery.

The government’s Heal in India initiative is focused on positioning India as a global leader in health, and to boost medical tourism in the country. The initiative involves digital portal, medical value travel, a window of integrated Indian healthcare for the world. This portal assists international patients with their end-to-end medical journey in India as well as provide global presence and discoverability to Indian health facilities and health professionals, along with facilitating transparency to the sector.

There has been a major telemedicine adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has made health facilities accessible to people in remote and tribal areas of the country. Patients with no geographic boundaries engage with healthcare professionals, making it an efficient way to access healthcare. The length of hospital stays for patients is becoming increasingly shorter to reduce healthcare costs. During prolonged postoperative periods, telemonitoring plays a significant role. Doctor teams manage the vital signs of a patient’s condition with the help of telemonitoring, which can monitor the patient’s condition post-discharge from the hospital, altering the medicine as per the patient’s vitals in aftercare, which further makes it possible an efficient system in healthcare model.

Having said that, the pandemic outbreak significantly impacted the India medical tourism market, like the global healthcare industry. The pandemic led to widespread travel restrictions and lockdowns, severely limiting patients’ ability to travel for medical treatment and resulting in a decline in medical tourism. The India medical tourism market was also affected by decreased demand for non-essential medical procedures, as patients prioritized their safety and avoided unnecessary travel. Many medical facilities were also repurposed to treat Covid-19 patients, limiting the availability of medical services for foreign patients.

The key concerns the industry currently facing are the after effects of not enough focus by the Government of India in the past, comprehensive effort at marketing the industry, no accreditation for hospitals defining capability of servicing international patients, and a lack of standardization of pricing policies. The surge in air pollution in north India has proved to be a major roadblock in growth. Experts warn the prolonged exposure to this toxic air could lead to multiple serious problems.

Almost no effort has gone into build-ding the ecosystem to attract international patients. Patients spend 80–85 percent of their time in guesthouses around the hospitals, and that is where they get a bad experience, and high chance of infection. Such guesthouses need to be standardized and hospitality players need to build patient-specific hotels near hospitals. 80–90 percent of the international patients come to India through a medical travel facilitator, who acts like a travel agent and health advisor to the patient. Significant investment is required in these companies who are marketing Indian healthcare across 70-plus countries through their offices, digital marketing, and regular events. Standardization needs to be brought into this segment of service providers urgently.

Insurance is another very large opportunity. Indian insurers should actively pursue the opportunity for selling Indian health insurance to foreigners.

India has already become the call center for the world given its advantage in skill and cost. It could similarly become the telehealth center of the world, healing people in India and through India.

The government fully appreciates its potential as a forex earner, job generator, and brand ambassador of India’s soft power. Today, there are thousands of politicians and government officials from Africa and Asia, who would owe to Indian healthcare for saving the life of a dear one. This is a valuable asset in the ever-changing geo-politics.

Moving forward
The medical tourism landscape in Asia is continually evolving as price no longer remains the only important consideration; focus has now shifted to diversity in offerings, niche offerings, and even customized luxury.

India faces stiff competition in the segment from countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. One disadvantage faced by Indian medical tourism industry is the lack of special visa rules for patients but it counters this with alternative therapy offerings like yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, and other traditional methods of treatment that attract tourists from European nations and the Middle East to India.

India needs to work on increasing efficiency at the immigration to make the travelling experience hassle-free for patients, and also better infrastructure in terms of highways and roads would add to the overall satisfaction of medical tourists. Affordable hotels and availability of language interpreters are a few areas, which also need to be given significant consideration to increase medical tourism in India.