Patients who travel to other countries are referred to as Medical Tourists. A recent study shows that these tourist travel to other countries for a few different main reasons. The majority of patients traveling to the US and other industrialized countries to seek a better quality of medical care or to obtain the latest in medical advances. But a growing number of patients are beginning to travel to other countries to seek lower costs. In the USA, 710,000 procedures are performed per year at an average of $50,000 per procedure for a grand total of $35 billion in revenue. These procedures could be done overseas for about $15,000 less per procedure. Though, it may be more likely for most patients to stay in the US since they also rely on medical insurance.

Since most medical tourists are uninsured, we may see a rise in medical tourism as the number of uninsured grows in the United States. In fact, it's extremely important for our country to focus on expanding the number of insured and cutting costs in the medical industry. Otherwise we are going to begin to lose a large portion of what makes up our GDP. The costs of the medical industry have been constantly escalating over the years and we need to begin to control the costs because we run the risk of chasing away our own citizens. Other countries are just as competent to perform the majority of these procedures; and even though the majority of medical tourists are wealthy, we may begin to see a trend if it becomes more cost effective to travel out of the United States to seek medical care.