Corporate Hospitals say medical tourism to touch pre-Covid levels by H2FY23

From nil revenues, it has already climbed back to 50% of pre-pandemic levels

Corporate hospital chains feel that medical tourism as a source of revenue would inch back to pre-pandemic levels by the second quarter of FY23.

Medical tourism accounted for roughly 10 per cent of the consolidated turnovers of large network hospitals, and this segment had completely frozen during the pandemic with international travel curbs.

Green shoots are, however, visible now.

According to Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD & CEO, Fortis Healthcare, “In the third quarter (Q3FY22), there was a recovery in medical tourism on a comparative basis, but if you really analyse the numbers, it has still not come back to pre-Covid levels. At our network we had 10 per cent of our revenues coming from international patients which currently are about 5-6 per cent (in the last quarter).”

He admitted that in January these numbers came down again as the third wave of Covid infections was raging in the country.

However, Raghuvanshi says, “My expectation is that now the recovery would be much faster. By March there will be some normalisation, and in the next couple of months medical tourism revenues should be back at the pre-pandemic levels. By the second quarter of next fiscal revenues from medical tourism can grow back to around 10 per cent levels.”

Other hospitals seem to agree.

Dilip Jose, MD, Manipal Hospitals explained: “Pre-pandemic, about 10 per cent of our total revenue was from medical value travel. That had nearly come down to nil in the peak of the first wave when stringent international travel restrictions were in place. Since then, there has been a slow recovery and presently it is about 50 per cent of the normal.”

Jose added that if international flights resume on a regular basis, outside of the current "air bubble" arrangements and Covid19 restrictions ease further, then we would expect to see the number of overseas patients return to earlier levels by the second half of FY23.

The optimism of corporate hospitals stem from the advance bookings or dialogues that the interested medical travelers are having at the moment.

“All these patients come through multiple channels, and there is an engagement for sometime before they come. That is where my optimism stems from, that the recovery now would be much faster,” Raghuvanshi said.

Corporate hospitals have already started working on plans to boost medical value tourism.

Aster DM Founder Chairman and Managing Director Azad Moopen told Business Standard that they have hired David Boucher from Bumrungrad International Hospital, Bangkok, where patients from 140 nationalities visit.

“He has just joined us for medical value travel, both for GCC and India. He spent some time in India and is now looking at how to improve the patient flow from other countries to Aster’s Indian hospitals,” Moopen said.

Moopen too said that while there was a fall in medical tourism, most of it is behind us. “There has been a fall in medical tourism. Now most of it is behind us. From 10 per cent of our revenues, it came down significantly to almost nil. But now it is slowly going up.”

Industry experts, however, also caution that proactive steps and a conducive environment for medical travel would help the industry to grow faster.

A senior executive of an industry lobby group explained: “Medical value travel has grown at 25 per cent CAGR, and has the potential to grow at the same rate for the next 10 years. Our treatment cost is 50 per cent of that of Thailand, and 20 per cent of that of Singapore. But there needs to be steps from the side of the government to ensure that India is the preferred destination.”

For example, India has 450 hospitals accredited by the NABH, and over 30 centers with JCI accreditation. “Still touts give the country a bad name by diverting patients to centers without accreditation. This is a big risk when it comes to delivering quality healthcare, and the Centre can mandate that medical visas would be issued only in the names of accredited centers,” the person added on grounds of anonymity.

Jose too felt that ease of access to medical visas would help. “Also, appropriate messaging in the key source geographies that India is once again fully geared up to accept international medical travelers,” he added.

This could be done through Indian embassies overseas, the industry felt.

Analysts are bullish on revenues from medical tourism growing in the coming quarters. Edelweiss Securities has noted in one of its recent reports that medical tourism contribution to Fortis revenues increased to 5.9 per cent in Q3FY22 compared to the previous quarter.