Medical tourism in AR
Medical tourism in AR section, includes general infrmation about Medical tourism Procedure, Medical tourism AR Local News, Medical tourism AR Surgeon Locator and other Medical tourism related material.
Medical tourism Procedure
Medical Tourism is also known as Medical Travel, Health Tourism, Health Travel, Medical Value Travel, Healthcare Abroad, Medical Overseas, Overseas Medical, Surgery Overseas, Medical Outsourcing and Offshore Medical. Medical tourism can be described as a healthy holiday. In most cases, medical tourists are not your average vacationers opting for medical or cosmetic treatment, just because it is available, but patients with significant health concerns for whom the cost of their health-care is a primary concern and the vacation aspect a secondary one. Indeed, someone needing medical or cosmetic treatment would not go abroad if the 'affordable healthcare' factor-quality of treatment, cost savings and wait time did not justify it. As long as you are healthy enough to travel, you stand to benefit from medical tourism’s offerings.
Medical Tourism is a combination of wellness and healthcare coupled with leisure and relaxation which is aimed at rejuvenating a person mentally, physically and emotionally, drawing away from his daily routine to a relaxed environment in an exotic location. Medical Tourism is the process of traveling abroad to receive superior medical, and cosmetic care by highly skilled surgeons at some of the most modern and state-of-the-art medical facilities in the world. This means that those who choose medical tourism are able to utilize the services of some of the top surgeons in the world, all while enjoying exotic locales and accommodations. Patients can put the money they are saving on the procedure into turning their journey into a magnificent, world-class retreat. For millions of patients, it is the only way to get the needed or desired medical treatment, without wiping out their entire life-savings.
Many countries offer discount medical tourism world wide. Some of the best destinations for international medical tourism include India, Thailand, Singapore and Mexico. Central and South American countries like Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil and Argentina also have top quality medical expertise to offer but also have great travel destinations where one can enjoy a medical vacation. Cosmetic surgery clinics offer services in countries such as Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Venezuela.
There are three categories that can suit prospective patients:
Elective surgery - A large number of medical tourists seek out elective procedures such as cosmetic, plastic, dental and wellness treatments that are not covered by insurance plans.
Underinsured - As insurers cut back on their coverage and insurance costs increase, more individuals find themselves ‘underinsured’. High deductibles, co-payments, out-of-pocket expenses, wait-lists and limited physician choices force many patients to seek out alternative treatments. Others find that the care they need is not covered under their insurance plans.
Uninsured - These individuals, many of which are self-employed, frequently find themselves delving into their hard-earned savings to finance their medical care. According to a Harvard study, half of personal bankruptcies are related to medical expenses. Thus, medical tourism is an increasingly popular solution among the uninsured population.
Research is the first step to successful medical tourism travel. Make sure that you do your research on the following:
The Procedure: Find out about the procedure and compare your expectations with what is achievable by the surgery. Also inquire about follow-up care needed, time required for recovery, physical therapy, etc.
The Hospital: When selecting the hospital that is right for your needs, you should consider the hospital's accreditation, awards and recognitions, facility and equipments, statistics like success rates, etc.
The Surgeon: Check the certifications, training and repute of the surgeon who will be treating you.
The Destination Country: You should base your selection on quality, distance and cost.
Always work with your local doctor and inform him about your decision to travel overseas for treatment. You may need his assistance prior to the surgery for furnishing the health records required by the international hospital and post surgery for any follow-up checks that may be required.
Bring the following documents with you:
Medical Records: Medical records like X-Rays, MRI's, health histories, photographs, immunization records, prescriptions, and any other health records relevant to the surgery. Remember to carry all these medical reports and any medicines in your carry-on luggage.
Passport and Visa: You will need a passport for yourself and your travel companion (if any). Depending upon the country you are traveling to, you may or may not need a visa. Check with your destination country's embassy for the same.
Credit Cards, Debit Cards and Travelers Checks: Bring some local currency, travelers checks and one or two major credit cards and debit cards.
Driver's license: Carry your driver's license and make sure it will remain valid while you're traveling.
For each document, make copies and leave one set of copies at a safe place at home.
Keep the following contact information handy:
1. Emergency contacts like relatives and friends
2. Destination embassy
3. Hospital
4. Hotel
5. Local surgeon / doctor
6. Employer
You should allow ample time for recovery after your surgery before you travel back home. Be prepared to stay longer when advised by your doctor. In some other cases, you may not need to stay for as long as was expected.
Medical tourism carries some risks that local medical procedures do not have. If complications do arise, patients might not be covered by insurance or be able to seek compensation via malpractice lawsuits. New insurance products are available that do protect the patient should a medical malpractice occur overseas. Some Medical Tourism destinations provide some form of legal remedies for medical malpractice. However, this legal venture is unappealing to the medical tourist. Advocates of medical tourism advise prospective tourists to evaluate the unlikely legal challenges against the benefits of such a trip before undergoing any surgery abroad.
Some countries, such as India, Malaysia, Costa Rica, or Thailand have different infectious diseases than Europe and North America, and different strains of the same diseases compared to nations such as the U.S., Canada, and the UK. Exposure to disease without having built up natural immunity can be a hazard for weakened individuals, specifically for gastrointestinal diseases (e.g Hepatitis A, amoebic dysentery, paratyphoid) which could weaken progress, also mosquito-transmitted diseases, influenza, and tuberculosis (e.g., 75% of South Africans have latent TB).
Travel soon after surgery can increase the risk of complications, as can vacation activities. For example, scars will be darker and more noticeable if they sunburn while healing. Long flights can be bad for those with heart (thrombosis) or breathing-related problems.
Since diseases run the gamut in poor tropical nations, doctors seem to be more open to the possibility of infectious diseases, including HIV, TB, and typhoid. There are cases in the West where patients were consistently misdiagnosed for years because such diseases are perceived to be "rare" in the West.
For hospitals and doctors seeking to provide Medical Tourism services, there is the risk of being sued by an unsatisfied patient, so medical indemnity services such as those provided by the Medical Protection Society are essential .
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Argentina Time Argentinians generally take a very relaxed attitude towards time. This can be unsettling to visitors from North America and non-Latin parts of Europe where punctuality is highly valued. You should expect that your Argentine contacts will be at least 10 to 15 minutes late for any appointment, even to a business meeting. Tardiness of 30 to 45 minutes is not unusual. This is considered normal in Argentina and does not signify any lack of respect for the relationship.
If you are invited to a dinner or party at, say, 9 PM. It does not mean that you should be present at 9 PM, but instead that you should not arrive before 9 PM. You'll be welcomed anytime afterwards. Arriving to a party 2-3 hours late is normally OK and sometimes expected. This is normally difficult to understand for Northern hemispherians.
This attitude extends to any scheduled activity in Argentina. Plays, concerts usually get going around half an hour after their scheduled times. Long distance buses usually leave on time. Short-distance public transportation like city buses and the subway do not even bother with time estimates; they arrive when they arrive. Factor these elements into your calculations of how long things will take.
Unannounced bus or train departures ahead of the schedule are not uncommon, especially in big cities. This is normally not a problem, as in general no one will expect you to be on time anyway.
Argentina History Following independence from Spain in 1816, Argentina experienced periods of internal political conflict between conservatives and liberals. In the first decade of the 20th century, Argentina became the richest nation in Latin America, its wealth symbolized by the opulence of its capital city.
European immigrants flowed into Argentina, particularly from Italy; by 1914 nearly 6 million people had come to the country.
After World War II, a long period of Peronist rule in subsequent governments was followed by a military junta that took power in 1976.
Democracy returned in 1983 after the abortive attempt to wrest the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) from United Kingdom sovereignity.
A painful economic collapse at the turn of the 21st century devalued the Argentine peso by a factor of three and ushered in a series of weak, short-lived governments along with social and economic instability. As of 2006, the country has stabilized under President Nestor Kirchner, and the economy has begun to recover.
Plastic Surgery News...
- A retrospective study suggests that antenatal corticosteroid treatment significantly reduces mortality in premature babies of 23 weeks gestation, however the authors caution that overall survival to discharge without adverse events was still very low.
Antenatal corticosteroid treatment is known to reduce respiratory distress and mortality in infants born between 24 and 34 weeks gestation, however it is not clear whether the benefits extend to those born at 23 weeks. As resuscitation at this age is becoming more common, the authors aimed to determine from available records whether they could find evidence of benefit. They carried out a retrospective medical record review across three US tertiary centres to identify infants born at 23 weeks gestation (23 weeks 0 days to 23 weeks 6 days) between the years 1998 and 2007. Pregnancies excluded were those with major foetal malformations, elective terminations, stillbirths, and those where parents declined resuscitation. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to assess the effect of steroids on the odds of death after adjustment for identified confounders. Primary outcome was infant death (death before hospital discharge).
There were 104,614 live births during the study period, and of these, 181 (to 149 mothers) met the inclusion criteria: 63 of the mothers received antenatal corticosteroids - 32 a full course and 31 a part course. Over third of the infants - 66 - died in the delivery room and of the 115 who survived to be admitted to the NNU, only 20 survived to discharge. The main confounding factor was multiple gestations, and after adjustment for this, use of antenatal corticosteroid was associated with a significant decrease in risk of death (odds ratio 0.32; 95% CI 0.12 to 0.84). When the effect of corticosteroid dose was analysed, only exposure to a full course was associated with benefit (OR for death 0.18; 95% CI 0.06 to 0.54). Although numbers of both severe intraventricular bleeding and necrotising enterocolitis were smaller in the corticosteroid group were smaller, the overall numbers affected were too small for any statistically significant difference to be detected.
The authors conclude that in their analysis, infants born at 23 weeks gestation whose mothers had received a complete course of antenatal corticosteroid had an 82% reduction in risk of death. They caution, however, that even amongst those exposed to corticosteroids, only 20% survived to discharge and half of these had severe intraventricular bleeding, necrotising enterocolitis, or both. They hope that their results will prompt randomised controlled trials with longer-term follow-up and economic analysis; nevertheless, they suggest that it would be reasonable to offer a full course of corticosteroid to mothers likely to deliver at 23 weeks, despite the low overall likely survival rate for the baby
- A team of engineers have recently created a new framework upon which cartilage tissue can be grown. The novel scaffold is porous, so the fabric can be seeded with cells and transplanted into a joint damaged by arthritis. The woven "fabric" will be absorbed by the body, leaving only healthy, strong cartilage for those who suffer from osteoarthritis or other cartilage injuries.