Medical Tourism Myths pt. 1

Even despite the fact that this industry is one of the most transparent ones (just try and get info on mining or lumber!), and has one of the largest internet presences, it remains a mysterious and sometimes downright shady industry in the eyes of many people. This is largely due to the negative comments and misinformation that is being spread by the people on the internet.

Despite the governments of the world trying their damndest to regulate the internet, it is still a place where whatever you say is taken at face value and is either rejected or accepted based on emotional value rather than on hard facts. You just cannot make a website with numbers and charts and have it get as many hits as cats being cute, or evil, or both.

Myths

When it comes to myths on the internet, it is important that we distinguish between ones that actually have an effect, and ones that are believed by absolutely no one, save the most gullible. Your organs being sold if you move out of your country is one of the latter, and medical tourism clusters on the other hand being an example of myths of the former type. The former type can be extremely damaging to an industry, especially one that cultivates such a strong online presence as this one does.

Funnily enough, most myths that can be taken seriously are trying to make the medical tourism establishment look better than it actually is. The first one I would like to discuss is the myth of exponential growth. While there is definitely growth, and immense growth as well, there is no exponential growth in this sector, or in any other medical sectors. It is not possible, you cannot go about beating peoples teeth out and then shipping them to foreign countries to get medical treatment, it is simply not a viable business model, and as such, you cannot get exponential growth. Forget about it.

The other myth is a compound one. In developing countries with good health care, such as Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc, many entrepreneurs believe that accreditation and the building of new facilities is plenty enough to have throngs of medical tourists run in and go wild for your product. The truth is, you are probably better off using existing medical facilities, and if you want to attract tourists, they need to know about you. It is that simple, that easy, being in the right location is not enough, and people who are in a similar location, maybe even the same one will have a leg up on you if they advertise at all.

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