Medical Tourism to Costa Rica Becoming Hugely Popular
In recent months Costa Rica medical tourism has become the third largest attraction for medical tourists from North America. Needless to say this is a rather huge market. People come to Costa Rica for a variety of procedures and for a variety of reasons. Overall the experiences of visitors is positive. New forms of affordable complication insurance has helped ease the minds of many potential visitors. In addition the well known factors of quality care at vast savings continues to be a strong attraction for visitors.
Canadians Getting in Line For Medical Tourism
Really there are different reasons for Canadians to consider medical care abroad than Americans. In Canada price is really not the issue since medicine is socialized. What has become the deciding factor in increased medical tourism by Canadians is the long wait times for basic care in Canada. In addition socialized medicine will pay for procedures in Costa Rica under certain circumstances. Almost 40,000 people used social insurance to pay for procedures abroad last year.
In the United States Price is still the Issue
Patients from the United States are still the largest market in the industry with more and more patients finding C.R. particularly attractive due to proximity, reputation, and familiarity as a tourist destination. High quality care at a large savings is the norm here. The Country has a particularly aggressive approach to promoting medical tourism with several major quasi governmental bodies throwing their hats into the ring. The country is already so well geared and tooled for tourism that their infrastructure easily supports the addition of patients. Everything works like a well oiled machine where tourism is concerned and the market is highly competitive in everything from hotels to transportation,and this competitive atmosphere truly benefits the tourism visitor medical or otherwise.
Breaking Into the Top Three
Becoming the third most popular destination for medical tourism in North America is a very big deal for such a small country and they are proud of their accomplishments in this arena. Costa Rica as mentioned has a very active promotional campaign educating consumers about medical tourism Costa Rica. Specifically an organization called Promed (The International Council for the Promotion of Costa Rica Medicine) leads the charge on education and standardization of medical care in the country. This body has held an international conference on these matters for the last 5 years running and the aim is to ultimately make them the number one medical tourism destination in the world.