Health for All: Medical Tourism as a Resource

India has been formulating policies for more than three decades to grow medical tourism as a significant globalised service through a well-trained set of clinicians and hospitals. After its economy became globally integrated, the country has attracted capital investment to the health sector through automatic approval of 100% foreign direct investment in hospitals. India is implementing an online portal-based system with the aim of removing information asymmetry and lack of predictability and transparency for visitors. The expansion of the hospital and wellness service sectors serving foreign tourists, who come for specific medical treatments as well as rejuvenation holidays, is marked by several challenges. The patients and visitors often encounter non-standard facilitation arrangements for accommodation, fixing of medical appointments, legal compliance, cost of treatments, post-procedure follow-up and recourse to remedies for defaults and deficiencies. We evaluate policy interventions made to help the medical tourists, the regulatory deficiencies and negative perceptions of the sector and propose prospective remedies. We conclude that the opportunity to attract foreign medical tourists is significant, but policy shortcomings need to be addressed to realise the potential without diverting resources away from public health care. Higher revenues from medical tourism can help expand healthcare access for Indian citizens.