Waiting lists top cost, part 2

The McKinsey report on the medical tourism industry was just presented at the Health Care Globalization Summit in Las Vegas, so I have a bit more information.

The definition for "medical tourist" in the report excludes anyone getting out-patient care, and anyone who is mixing travel with medicine.

In other words, if patients combined their medical travel with  sightseeing or lying on a beach, or did not spend a night in hospital, they were cut from the report's stats.

One medical travel broker here told me the exclusion of out-patients would drop from the stats some 90 per cent of plastic surgery and dentistry procedures done -- two big reasons people go abroad for medical care.

By its own estimates, McKinsey has excluded up to two-thirds of the travel that many in the industry include in their stats -- meaning the industry could be much larger than the company is estimating.

Singapore hospital representatives here claim they to serve up to 400,000 medical tourists a year on their own.