Medical Tourism White Paper: Implications for Participants in the US Health Care System

Check out my article Predicting the Impact of Medical Tourism at HealthLeaders. It’s the feature of the day there.

Next week we will release a white paper entitled Medical Tourism: Implications for Participants in the US Health Care System. If you’d like a copy, use the contact form to request one.

Here’s a quick rundown of the predictions. Check out the HealthLeaders article for more details.

• Prediction 1: Medical tourism will cross over to the insured population in 2008
• Prediction 2: Mini-med plans and small employers–not big health plans and blue chip companies–will be the early adopters
• Prediction 3: Opposition to medical tourism by U.S. physicians will be modest
• Prediction 4: State governments will begin to embrace medical tourism by 2010
• Prediction 5: The emergence of medical tourism won’t have a major, direct impact on U.S. health care costs, but the secondary impact will be substantial

In the white paper we delve into the predictions in more detail and outline what it all means for health plans, employers, providers, medical device companies and pharmaceutical companies. I look forward to your feedback.