" USA: Deloitte report on US healthcare .."

As part of the 2010 Survey of Health Care Consumers, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions examined the behaviors, attitudes and unmet needs of 400 adult Americans – from a variety of regions, ethnicities, age groups and other key demographics – and on a variety of issues and trends. Not surprisingly, there were significant differences in how people view the health care universe.

The survey asked respondents their views about travel outside their local area for treatment. Other Deloitte surveys have referred to travel outside the USA, but this rather loosely describes medical tourism as travelling outside your own community.

The survey results were revealing. Many of the apparent differences in consumer attitudes and approach break down along lines of income, the extent and source of insurance coverage and the age of respondents. Wealthier respondents express greater interest in medical tourism, as do those enrolled in public health plans. Younger consumers are least interested in traveling for medical treatment, however in the past 12 months, consumers aged between 17 and 28 were more likely to have travelled outside their local area for medical services, than older working age consumers. Gender plays virtually no role in whether a patient considers medical travel. 

Those without medical coverage are least likely to travel for medical treatment. Individuals covered by Medicare are more likely to travel outside the area for treatment. Nearly half of consumers who say they earn upper-income annual salaries are willing to travel for treatment. Preparedness to travel is not the same as actually doing so. You may be prepared to go on holiday to the Arctic Circle, but whether you actually do so depends on a whole host of factors.

The survey only asked about preparedness to travel outside of their own community. This has been loosely reported as preparedness to travel outside the USA, but that is an incorrect interpretation of the survey. The question refers to preparedness to travel outside people’s own town or city for health care. That could be within their own state. It could be to another state, it may even be to another country.

The number reported as actually travelling outside their own community is 7%, down on 8% last year. This does not, as some have wrongly reported, equate to 7% who travelled to another country or even 7% who travelled outside their own state.  Compared with 49% in 2009, 41% say that they would travel outside their local area to seek medical services.

The concern for medical travel businesses is that despite health care being top of the political agenda for the last year, and medical tourism receiving increased coverage in the US media, the survey shows a fall in the numbers who did or who are prepared to travel for treatment.