Medical & Dental Tourism in Ecuador

Some of you may already be familiar with what Medical & Dental Tourism is, and some of you may not be. Medical & Dental Tourism is traveling from your home country such as the USA or Canada for example to another country known for its low cost, yet high quality of health care. Traveling abroad for health purposes may make it affordable as well as sensible for people to get their needed medical or dental procedure. Some of the most well known countries for Medical Tourism are Thailand, India, Costa Rica, etc. These countries dominate the world with their low cost of health care procedures and excellent quality of care that even exceeds the USA, Canada and Europe in many cases.

What most people don’t know is that Ecuador was in the past year ranked number 6th by the World Health Organization as the most improved health care system in the world. The government of Ecuador is investing heavily in new medical facilities and services as well as medical education for its already large base of well-trained doctors and nurses. Ecuador is seeing increasing numbers of foreigners visiting Ecuador to take advantage of low costs and high quality services (1.5 million foreign visitors to Ecuador in just 2014 alone!).

An American living in Cuenca, Ecuador can expect to pay just 15-30 percent of what they would pay in the USA or Canada for their medical or dental treatments.

So, how do you get started and go forward with Medical or Dental Tourism? Well, you will need to decide whether you would like to simply just coordinate everything on your own or instead go through a medical tourism facilitator. A medical & dental tourism facilitator will facilitate your entire trip from start to finish from the moment you step off the plane to the moment you depart back to your home country. From picking you up at the airport with a professionally trained English speaking driver, to taking you directly to a hotel of your choice and making reservations for you at such a hotel, to coordinating your “recreational tourism” activities such as a trip to ancient Incan Ruins or an adventure to the Galapagos Islands. A facilitator can even set up a homestay where a nice English speaking expat can take care of you during your post-surgery time and provide you with food, board, even entertainment options as well. A quality medical & dental tourism facilitator usually also will have certified Ecuadorian or American nurses who can come visit you at your hotel upon your request or if necessary. They will take you to your doctor appointments and assist you with any translations if needed or if the doctor’s English is not perfect (which some doctors are not well versed in English but are in fact very excellent doctors!). The medical and dental tourism facilitator will provide you with a temporary cell phone right away upon your arrival, so that the facilitator and you as the medical or dental tourist have perfect communication at all times. A facilitator may visit you in the hospital and even pick you up after your procedure.

Most Medical Tourism Facilitators do NOT even charge their clients for ANY of these facilitation services. One of the biggest questions most people might have is how in the world do facilitators get paid then? Well, the doctors, taxi drivers, hotels and tourism agencies are actually paying the facilitators a small commission (usually around 10-15% of the normal cost of that service), but they do NOT at all markup the cost, as they simply reward the VOLUME of clients that the facilitator provides to them throughout the year. And Medical Tourism Facilitators themselves DO NOT mark up the cost of the procedure or services they provide either. The Medical Tourism Facilitator simply gets a small portion or cut out of whatever the doctor might make in total, and so thus, a medical or dental tourist doesn’t ever have to worry about paying more for their medical or dental care or hotels and such than if they were to just do everything by themselves. Most Medical Tourism Companies don’t even accept payments to their own company directly, and will INSTEAD tell their clients to just pay each service provider as they go.

If you ask me, getting Medical & Dental Tourism done through a facilitator who specializes in what they do for basically FREE to the client (no facilitation fee) is ALWAYS the way to go. They know who the most reputable doctors are, have written patient testimonials to prove it, and can (and usually will!) make your experience go smoothly and comfortably, so that you have a “very happy story” to tell your friends and family about back home when you finish your overseas “Medical or Dental Vacation”.

Nicholas Barringer serves as the Medical Tourism Administrator of Operations of the Find Health in Ecuador Dental & Medical Clinic in Cuenca, Ecuador, and for purposes of discussing your Medical Tourism related Dental or Medical needs or questions, is available via email at barringernicholas@gmail.com, via US Phone Number at 1-941-227-0114 or on his Cuenca clinic’s phone line of 074.108.745

Courtesy of: Nicholas Barringer, Operator of the “Find Health in Ecuador Dental & Medical Clinic”