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Today medical tourism is more popular than ever. Modern man felt these opportunities and began to actively use them. This applies to medicine. However, as in any process, there were pitfalls, not to collide, with which only high-quality information will help. Read 10 tips about treatment abroad from the MediGlobus team of experts.
READ IN ARTICLE:
How to choose a clinic?
How to make an appointment with a doctor in a foreign clinic?
Can you get a preliminary treatment program?
How to get a visa?
Is it possible to go with relatives?
What can you save on?
Do you need the services of specialized companies in medical tourism?
Can the amount of treatment change after arrival?
If you need rehabilitation after treatment, where to go through it?
HOW TO CHOOSE A CLINIC?
Choosing a clinic is better not only on reviews on the Internet, but also taking into account the recommendations of specialists who can guide about the treatment options and specialties in modern medicine. As a rule, patients do not always choose the right hospital on their own.
The chosen hospital should have all the necessary medical diagnostic equipment, as well as qualified doctors to treat a disease. The clinic must have international certificates of quality and safety of providing medical services. Pay attention to the certificates of JCI, TUV, ISO, as well as national quality certificates.
In some situations, preference can be given to the choice of a narrowly specialized clinic in comparison to a multispecialty hospital, example can be ophthalmology or orthopedics. It is also very important to choose a doctors, because the success of treatment largely depends on his qualifications, and already the necessary technology is available in 90% of international clinics.
The quality level of medical services does not always depend on the price. However, only experts in medical tourism have information about the real quality of the price.
Paying attention to the reviews, it is important to give priority to video reviews, because it is usually not difficult to distinguish the actor’s play in the video. But fake text reviews are harder to distinguish. If there are only text reviews, then pay attention to proven sites that guarantee their originality.
HOW TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DOCTOR IN A FOREIGN CLINIC?
To begin with, we recommend that you check the doctor’s appointment schedule on the desired arrival dates. For an appointment with a doctor, an international passport is required (the standard situation for patient identification). In the process, you will also need to provide a valid air ticket in the name of the patient (as confirmation of the visit to the country). Appointment with some top doctors can be carried out on the basis of a prepayment (more relates to the countries of the European Union).
IS IT POSSIBLE TO RECEIVE A PRELIMINARY TREATMENT PROGRAM?
To receive the preliminary program not only it is possible, but also it is necessary. So you can have a fully-written information sheet before your eyes that will include all the necessary information about the upcoming examination and / or treatment, the length of stay in the country, the price policy, the nearest hotels and the treating doctor.
The program can be obtained by remote provision of medical documents, reports, pictures and patient’s passport for preliminary consideration of specialized doctors. Documents must be properly prepared.
Please note that all programs are preliminary and are compiled according to the data provided by the patient. In addition, patient always need to properly plan the timing of the visit and receive a preliminary medical program, because even it has its own timeline of relevance.
Clinics very often respond slowly to treatment of patients or do not respond to them at all.
Therefore, to obtain a treatment program and write to a doctor, contact the companies that are professionally engaged in treatment abroad. You can leave a message on our website and the MediGlobus team will help you get to the desired specialist in the clinic that you have chosen.
HOW TO OBTAIN A VISA FOR TREATMENT ABROAD?
You can obtain an entry permit (visa) in two ways:
- Independently by yourself: In this case it will be necessary to apply for a tourist visa and provide the embassy with the necessary documents for opening this type of visa.
- Having received an invitation from the medical center and applied for a medical visa.
Despite the fact that the second way in most cases requires deposit in the hospital account, we recommend choosing it. The process of issuing a visa is greatly simplified after receiving an invitation from a medical center. So, the patient is no longer required to prove the purpose of the visit and to confirm the availability of sufficient financial means, that is, the number of documents for visa processing is significantly reduced.
Since a medical visa is a special type of visa, it can be issued to the patient in few days (3-5 days usually) after the documents are submitted. This is an undoubted advantage, because the average period of verification of documents for a tourist visa is about 2 weeks (depending on the chosen country and the workload of the embassy).
HOW TO SAVE ON TREATMENT ABROAD?
Article on saving No. 1. Treatment in the CIS countries is almost always at times cheaper than in foreign clinics. But there are options to save abroad. The price tag for medical services may vary from country to country: the same amount of diagnostic or treatment procedures can cost differently in clinics. We recommend that patients do not judge hospitals by the price level, because cheap – not always bad, but expensive – is not always good.
The level of price depends on the level of fame and the class of medical center. Clinics that spend large amounts of money on advertising and marketing should justify spending, so the price tag for their services will be higher than in a smaller and less advertised hospital. However, as a rule, the larger the clinic, the newer are the equipment and the more experienced are the doctors.
The price will also differ from country to country. So, in Turkey the cost of medical services will be 30-40% cheaper than in the European Union, in the Czech Republic it is 30% lower than in Germany. And this, as we have already said, does not mean that Turkey or the Czech Republic is worse. MediGlobus Doctor-coordinator will help you to understand the issue in more detail.
Article on saving No. 2. If your budget is very limited, consider the cost of the transfer, interpreter services, food, stay in the country. Prices are different everywhere. In some countries, a logistics package is provided to patients free of charge (transfer, interpreter). Some will have to pay separately for this. Prefer the help in booking a hotel or apartment for accommodation from your agent or clinic, as the prices for patients are usually lower than for tourists.
Do not afraid of short periods of hospitalization. Since preference is given first and foremost to low-traumatic operations, the time of hospitalization is significantly reduced. In some countries, after surgery on the brain, patients are discharged from the clinic after 3-4 days, and this is normal. The longer you stay in the hospital, the more your hospitalization bill will be. With the permission of the attending doctor at the hotel or the guest house, it is much cheaper to stay than in the clinic.
Article on saving No. 3. Sometimes a patient can save on air tickets. In addition to advice to use low-cost airlines that offer tickets at reduced prices, we can recommend to take interest in possible discounts, both for patients. For some popular destinations, the airlines together with the clinics are ready to return you up to 50% of the cost of the ticket subject to confirmation of the received medical services.
DO WE NEED THE SERVICES OF SPECIALIZED COMPANIES IN MEDICAL TOURISM?
If you want to make an appointment with a top doctor in the shortest possible time, get into a major university hospital, get a prompt response from the clinic or get medical help urgently, you will probably need the services of specialized companies.
Today, large licensed companies provide a lot of services to patients, which greatly simplifies all the stages of preparation for a medical trip abroad. So, for starters, you can get advice by phone about medical centers and compare them. Large companies are usually more independent than small companies, and are interested in providing quality information to the patient.
Timing and efficiency are important to patients, and the international departments of hospitals, as a rule, do not hurry to give an answer, and even completely ignore the treatment of patients. Every day hospitals receive hundreds of cases, which are left unattended due to the poor work of the department. Again, the advantage will be on the side of a specialized company, since its employees located directly in the hospital will be able to speed up the processing of the treatment and control the forwarding of documents to the right doctor.
Such specialized company will also take care of all the issues related to the planning of the trip. You will be helped to choose a flight, book suitable accommodation, organize a transfer and an interpreter. Besides, being in a foreign country, one way or another there are a lot of questions that require constant coordination: the company will also take care of this.
In some popular countries, without the participation of such a company and not at all. This is especially true when the question is about the possibility of receiving medical care in a large university clinic, where the patient can get himself into trouble quite often if going by himself.
How much do all these services cost? As a rule, medical tourism companies take from the patient a certain amount or a percentage of the cost of treatment. If we talk about MediGlobus, then our services for patients are FREE OF CHARGE. Patient pays strictly for the price of the clinic and only for treatment and accommodation.
In conclusion, it can be said that large specialized medical tourism companies greatly simplify and reduce the risks of patients associated with a trip to treatment.
DO I GO MYSELF OR WITH RELATIVES?
You can go with accompanying person of course, and yourself. But if there is an opportunity, we recommend taking with you one of the relatives, especially if the question is about long or complicated treatment. A close person will provide you with support, help relax and relieve tension.
In hospitals, all necessary care is provided by junior medical personnel, but the support of a relative will not be superfluous, especially when hospitalized, the presence of one accompanying person in the ward with the patient is often provided free of charge, and in the hotel the room is usually designed for two.
CAN THE TREATMENT AMOUNT CHANGE AFTER THE ARRIVAL?
The cost of treatment can vary both in the higher and in the lower side, it all depends on the results of the prescribed diagnosis and the condition of the patient at the time of arrival (and it may differ from the one declared before coming to the hospital). In addition, it is quite difficult to predict whether the patient will spend 3-4 days in hospital or a longer stay under medical supervision.
Typically, the cost of treatment changes if the hospital provides poor-quality, incorrect or outdated information, as well as in case of a change in diagnosis. The total percentage of cases of price changes is not more than 30%.
IF THERE IS REHABILITATION NEEDED AFTER TREATMENT, WHERE SHOULD IT BE CARRIED OUT?
Most often, rehabilitation after treatment is necessary for patients of orthopedic, neurosurgical and neurological specialities. As a rule, it is conducted in appropriate specialized rehabilitation centers, where there are more opportunities for rehabilitation. Many clinics have contracts with similar centers or provide primary rehabilitation services to patients directly in the hospital. For example, most large orthopedic centers that perform arthroplasty of joints offer their patients a qualitative rehabilitation on spot, which begins already on day 2 after surgery.
For psychological rehabilitation, as well as patients with addictions, it is better to choose exclusively profile hospitals that can provide services of high-class psychologists and psychotherapists in the patient’s native language, otherwise such rehabilitation with an interpreter will be a waste of time.
Specific rehabilitation for other patients is usually not required due to the preferential use of low-traumatic surgical techniques and reduces to the correction of lifestyle (nutrition, physical activity and therapeutic physical education).
If you have any questions about treatment abroad, you want to know more information or apply for treatment, leave a message on our website. The MediGlobus medical coordinator will contact you and provide you all the necessary information.
