NEW YORK: Asia is positioning itself to grow at the expense of the West via medical tourism.
Asia benefits from a “perfect storm of an aging global population, rising affluence and greater choice in quality hospitals,” said Josef Woodman, CEO of Patients Beyond Borders.
Major Asian players like India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are aggressively promoting treatments at up to 80 percent cheaper compared to developed nations.
Southeast Asia is considered a medical tourism “sweet spot”, with decades of solid economic growth creating high-quality medical systems that remain competitively priced. Patients come from both rich and poor nations, the former driven by high costs at home and the latter seeking better quality care.
Malaysia’s market has nearly doubled since 2010, reaching 770,000 patients and $200 million in revenue last year, according to government figures. “We are behind Thailand for sure, but we are giving Singapore a good fight,” said T. Mahadevan, head of the Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia.
Thailand says it attracted 2.53 million medical tourists in 2012.