Medical Tourism Association

Medical Tourism Association™ Memebership and Affiliation:

The Costa Rica Medical Tourism Group is proud to be a member in Good standing of the Medical Tourism Association™:

The Medical Tourism Association (MTA), which is also known as Medical Travel Association, is the first membership, non-profit, internationally-based, trade association dealing with the medical travel/medical tourism and global health care industry.  It is made up of the top health care providers,  international hospitals, medical travel facilitators and consultants, insurance companies, and other affiliated companies and members whose aim is promoting the highest level of healthcare quality to patients in a global environment.

What the Medical Tourism Association does is promote the interests of its member health care providers and medical tourism facilitators. The three tenets of the Medical Tourism Association™ are: “Transparency in Quality and Pricing, Communication and Education.”

Accordingly, the Medical Tourism Association™ looks to provide transparency in pricing and especially in quality of care. It is quite apparent that the globalization of medical care has created what seems to be a small world. There is an ongoing exchange in communication, technology, information, communication, patients, and physicians.

Transparency about the quality of health care that can be found in each country is our main goal in order to ensure the safety of each and every patient. Additionally, the creation of pricing transparency for patients traveling overseas for medical is increasingly important so that they will know what they will receive, without having to worry about hidden costs and/or unforeseen expenses. The Quality of Care Project is also part of the main goal of the Medical Tourism Association™, and it will change the way we look global health care statistics reporting, as well as the quality of healthcare available at hospitals all over the world.

Transparency in Communication:

The Medical Tourism Association™ and its members agree that communication is the key to a successful medical tourism enterprise, especially when it comes to ensuring patient outcomes that are positive. Medical Tourism Association™ members are in agreement that competition should be put aside in order to be able to work together and resolve any issues one by one and to deal with them as they come up. A forum to foster communication has been created by the Medical Tourism Association for everyone involved in the global healthcare industry.

Transparency in Education:

We live in a world where information is readily available, but there many people who simply don’t know that they the highest quality of care can be accessed outside the country where they live. There are people in the United States, Canada, England and other European countries who lack access to healthcare due to costs that are continuously rising, a lack of insurance, and/or long lines and waiting times.

There are people in some parts of the Middle East and Africa who do not have access to high quality medical care at home, so they have to look elsewhere. Then there  are people who simply enjoy traveling outside their home country for medical care so that they can combine high quality care with tours, sightseeing and some adventure mixed in.

Although the reasons are different, patients need to have access to education and information so they can understand what they need to look for in order to find a quality health care provider overseas. They also need to know which considerations should be given more thought so their safety can be ensured.

More and more insurance companies are adding global health care and medical tourism options into their plans and packages, with domestic health care providers being required to provide aftercare when patients return home. Therefore, there is a need for education so that this can be accomplished without undue burden to the patient, and the Medical Tourism Association has made this a central focus.

Education is provided by the Medical Tourism Association™ using different means:  Media, conferences,  the Medical Tourism Magazine, and the Health Tourism Magazine, among others. These means of education are provided to anyone who has an interest in the medical tourism industry.

As a medical tourism facilitation service, Medical Tours Costa Rica adheres to the tenets of the Medical Tourism Association.

You can visit the Medical Tourism Association™ website for more information.