| Health Services Trade in Contemporary China This article was written by Stephnie Mok, Harvard University, with financial assistence by Harvard Medical International |
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As healthcare expenditures escalate to burdensome and often-times unrealistic levels in developed nations, payors seek to identify alternative sources of care that will reduce costs while ensuring quality of care. Uninsured individuals in developed countries are similarly seeking alternatives to unaffordable but desirable elective care. Nowadays, the answer to the dilemma may possibly lie within the east. Emerging economic nations with low construction and labor costs have made elective procedures set within scenic destinations attractive to worldwide consumers. Medical tourism, otherwise known as the health service trade, health tourism or medical outsourcing, characterizes the trend where cosmetic, elective surgeries, organ transplant surgical procedures and alternative therapies are sought specifically outside the patients¡¯ home country. A thriving business in Southeast Asia, medical tourism provides a solution for patients who face long waiting queues or incur exponentially high costs in other regions of the world. The broadening of the healthcare market to include all international providers effectively increases competition and drives costs down for both insurers and patients while raising revenue for developing countries. In the past quarter of a century, China has altered the global platform through its role in free-trade. Manifesting trade liberalization in healthcare with global market competition of medical procedures, the author posed this exploratory white paper to assess China¡¯s potential as a key medical tourism destination within the global market of health services trade due to its recent investments in advanced medical technology and growing need for additional revenue to sustain its swelling domestic population. The aims of this paper will seek to include an assessment of what barriers to entry into the medical tourism market exist for China, the unique medical services or alternative therapies that Chinese providers may offer to the global health care market, and what impact that a rising medical tourism market within China may have on its domestic health care policy and provision of care. To view the entire report, click here.
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