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. 2021 Sep;36(5):1407-1416.
doi: 10.1002/hpm.3259. Epub 2021 Jun 6.

Looking around the corner: COVID-19 shocks and market dynamics in US medical tourism

Irving Stackpole  1 , Elizabeth Ziemba  2 , Tricia Johnson  3
Affiliations

Looking around the corner: COVID-19 shocks and market dynamics in US medical tourism

Irving Stackpole et al. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Patients have historically travelled from across the world to the United States for medical care that is not accessible locally or not available at the same perceived quality. The COVID-19 pandemic has nearly frozen the cross-border buying and selling of healthcare services, referred to as medical tourism. Future medical travel to the United States may also be deterred by the combination of an initially uncoordinated public health response to the pandemic, an overall troubled atmosphere arising from widely publicized racial tensions and pandemic-related disruptions among medical services providers. American hospitals have shifted attention to domestic healthcare needs and risk mitigation to reduce and recover from financial losses. While both reforms to the US healthcare system under the Biden Presidency and expansion to the Affordable Care Act will influence inbound and outbound medical tourism for the country, new international competitors are also likely to have impacts on the medical tourism markets. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, US-based providers are forging new and innovative collaborations for delivering care to patients abroad that promise more efficient and higher quality of care which do not necessitate travel.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; academic medical centers; health policy; innovation; international patients; medical tourism; medical travel.

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Conflict of interest statement

Irving Stackpole is the President of Stackpole & Associates, which provides consultation related to medical tourism. Elizabeth Ziemba is President and Founder of Medical Tourism Training, which provides training and consultation related to medical tourism. Tricia Johnson is provides consultation to the US Cooperative for International Patient Programs, a non‐profit association of international patient programs of US hospitals.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
US travel spending receipts (Inbound Visitors to US), 2000—January 2021, Source: National Travel and Tourism Office, 2021; https://travel.trade.gov/research/reports/recpay/index.asp
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
US national unemployment rate, January 2011 to March 2021, Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021; https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
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