Reflection project. Medical Tourists. History Reaction Paper
Reflection Project
In keeping with the themed-topic of the course, students will be required to read local, state, and/or national
newspapers and collect four (4) articles on health care (e.g. the political debate, personal experiences, budgetary
concerns, statistical data, comparative analysis – to name a few categories). Note: Students can access the articles in
digital or paper format. Students, however, must scan and add the articles to the reflection project for the draft and
final project. Students are required to identify, analyze, and write a two-page reflection per article. While the articles
maybe from different sources and published on different dates, there must be a common theme or topic.
The reflections are designed to encourage students to immerse themselves in the twenty-first century health care
debate. In the reflections, students should display a clear command of the theme/topic by engaging with the
topic/theme by incorporating arguments introduced in the required readings discussed over the course of the semester.
Students should address the following in their reflections: misconceptions about health care, the role of the
government/private insurance companies, the debate over rights vs. privilege, address the problem with maintaining
affordability and increasing accessibility, examine the experiences of minorities in the nation’s health care system,
and/or lingering health care concerns. The final reflection project should have a clearly defined argument and students
must include facts (from the articles and/or required readings) to support their position. The reflection project should
be at least fifteen (15) full pages (consisting of a cover page, introduction, four two-page reflections, four newspaper
articles, and a bibliography). The reflection project must be typed double-spaced, standard 1-inch margins, Times New
Roman font, page numbers centered-bottom of each page, include footnotes following Chicago Style.
To help with the reflection project, students will be required to complete several preliminary assignments. 1). Students
will select a topic by Thursday, September 26, 2019 (post in Blackboard); 2). Students will be required to submit an
outline on Thursday, October 17, 2019 via email as a Microsoft Word attachment; and 3). Students must complete and
submit a draft of at least two (2) reflections by Tuesday, November 5, 2019 via email as a Microsoft Word attachment.
The final project must be posted to Turnitin in Blackboard by Friday, December 13, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. No late papers
will be accepted. Papers will not be graded if they are not uploaded to Turnitin.
do not worry about outline or drafts.
Hi. I made my outline based on a topic about "Medical Tourists".
I know my outline was awful. But if you can please keep the topic. And you may use any source you want.
I did not fully understand what the hell does that teacher want, that class was such a mess, so I decided to ask help.
you have such a long time to finish this. take your time.
Any questions, just send me a message.
Medical Tourists
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Medical Tourists
For the recent past, the media has been captured by the increasing rate of medical tourism leading to the publications of guidebooks, articles and broadcasts covering medical tourism. A quick search of the term “medical tourism” on December 1, 2019, produced 475,000,000 results on Google, an increase of 473,900,000 from 2007. This is an indication that medical organizations and practitioners need to provide accurate information about this evolving and rapidly growing trend. Additionally, there is a need for all of the involved parties to be familiar with this trend and understand the social, economic, medical, and political factors that are influencing this phenomenon.
Various scholars have attempted to define this concept but there are conflicts in their definitions. Jagyasi has defined it as “a set of activities in which a person travels, often long distances or across the border, to avail services with direct or indirect engagement in leisure or other purposes.” From this definition, it is evident that medical tourists are those patients who travel outside their countries to seek for medical services and tourism packages. The scope of thee services has been widened due to the dynamic changes in medical needs and individualization of medical expectations. It has been argued that medical tourism benefits both patients and the industry. Given the above, one can argue that medical tourism is a complex phenomenon evolving from the changing demands in the market.[Jagyasi, P. "Medical tourism blue." Medical Tourism Magazine 310, no. 14 (2009):]
Every year, millions of Americans leave the country in order to save money on exorbitant medications and surgeries - a phenomenon called "medical tourism." “Medical tourism” was valued at about $439 billion last year in a new report by Visa and Oxford Economics, which projected that it could grow 25 percent a year over the next decade. This year, an estimated 1.4 million Americans will leave the country for a medical procedure, according to Patients Beyond Borders (Dalen and Joseph, 2019).
Citizens from developed countries forego services provided in their own countries and travel to developing nations for medical care. Medical tourism has changed the traditional model of medical travel where people from developing countries to developed nations for medical services that are not available in their countries.
Dalen, James E., and Joseph S. Alpert. "Medical Tourists: Incoming and Outgoing." The American journal of medicine 132, no. 1 (2019): 9-10. /article/S0002-9343(18)30620-X/fulltext
In this article, the authors highlight a number of issues concerning the emerging medical tourism industry. The major concern is the affordability costs of care in the USA compared to other medical tourist destinations. The healthcare costs in the United States have become a major concern to most Americans who are increasing the costs of receiving the care in the country compared to the costs they might incur if they get the care outside America. Statistics show that there are countries that offer various medical procedures at less cost than in USA due to lower pays to healthcare workers. This a major concern in the healthcare system in the country. With more patients moving outside than it was before where patients were coming to USA for medical services, the general economy loses and boosts countries that are soliciting this phenomenon.[Dalen, James E., and Joseph S. Alpert. "Medical Tourists: Incoming and Outgoing." The American journal of medicine 132, no. 1 (2019): 9-10.]
It is surprising that instead of various US medical centers attempting to solve the issue of increasing medical costs in the United States, they are establishing clinics and hospitals outside USA in order to capitalize on this growing trend. This is a clear indication that the government is not doing much to incentivize or implement policies that will ensure that everyone has access to medical care at comparable costs to those of other countries. Capitalizing on medical tourism raises various concerns in healthcare system not only in the United States but outside the country. The primary concern is the quality of care and before they contract the service, they try to find out if they are accredited. The Joint Commission has been evaluating, inspecting and accrediting various hospitals outside the United States and by 2017 it had accredited more than 799 hospitals and the number is increasing every year. Also, they consider the qualifications of the practitioners where statistics show that quite a number of physicians and health practitioners practicing in these overseas hospitals have US training and certifications. This has played an important role in reaffirming US medical tourists that the quality of care provided in these hospitals is of high standards.
However, these medical tourists are also concerned with legal issues with foreign hospitals and physicians and how the consequences might be handled before contracting the service. Some of the considerations are what happens if complications occur after returning to the United States? Do US doctors treat complications that arise from medical tourism or they have to return to where they received the service? And most importantly, what are costs? Besides the fact that these concerns are important in assessing the quality of care, most of the medical tourists purchase medical complication insurance due to such uncertainties.
The outgoing number of medical tourists is increasing than the number of the incoming and this is a major concern in the health sector in the country. The consequences of this increasing trend need to be assessed from all aspects to determine what needs to be done in the US healthcare system. However, it is not only the healthcare that is affected but also the general economy of the country. This trend in medical care can be equated to the carmaker industry where Japanese cars disrupted their American counterparts after establishing a value for money and reliability concerns. This is what overseas hospitals and clinics are doing, they are charging far less costs compared to American hospitals for the same quality of services but now, the patients can also explore other things creating value for their money.
MedicalXpress. US ‘medical tourists’ seek cheap health care abroad
This article provides an overview of the US healthcare system from a consumer perspective. It explains the experience of Verona Merrill as a medical tourist who sought stomach surgery for weight loss services. From this article it is evident that the US healthcare system is expensive compared to overseas hospitals. It also raises another concern of most patients, insurance covers. Most of the patients who undergo medical care in foreign hospitals do so because their insurances covers part of the procedure or cases where the patients have a certain condition. This implies that they have to pay part of the fee out of their pockets. In the case of Merrill, the cost of undergoing a stomach surgery was $12,000 in the United States compared to $4,000 in Mexico. I could have done exactly what she did, who do not want to save money after all.[MedicalXpress. “US ‘medical tourists’ seek cheap health care abroad.” 2019, October 4. Accessed December 07, 2019.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-medical-tourists-cheap-health.html]
However, even though American medical tourists are going abroad, they are not happy with it but they have no option because some procedures are very critical and very expensive in the American healthcare system. This is evident that US healthcare is expensive despite having the best quality of service. This article also raises another concerning medical tourism issue, price regulation. Merrill says that everything from tickets, hotel and the surgery at the Oasis of Hope hospital, cost here $3,880 which she paid in cash.
The United States healthcare has a number of issues which are raised by this article. Policy implementation appears to be increasing medical tourism in the country. Examples are the reforms by President Obama in 2010 which required adults to have insurance plans and since then it is evident that medical tourists have increased. These policies have double effects, not only individuals who are affected; employers also feel the burden of United States’ expensive healthcare system. Employers who feel that their medical costs for their employees were increasing, they sent them to foreign countries to receive the care that they need. This has enabled them to save a lot of money in return. This is evident that medical care costs are not the primary concerns for individuals but also to organizations.
It is with no doubt that the United States of America has the most advanced healthcare system; despite it being expensive it still receives medical tourists who are rich enough to afford it. Majority of the Americans consider this a luxury which they cannot afford hence their travelling to foreign countries to receive the care.
Lita Epstein. “6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive in the U.S.” /articles/personal-finance/080615/6-reasons-healthcare-so-expensive-us.asp
The US healthcare is known to be expensive but the underlying reasons are not well known. This article does a wonderful job in providing more insights into this whole issue of US’s healthcare system being expensive. Lita provides six reasons but there could be more. The number one reason is the administrative costs which are not necessary. The United States’ hospitals have more clerks than their bed capacity. Therefore, in order to get funds to pay the workers, they charge patients more. This is an unnecessary expense which should be scrapped ...