Medical Tourism Facilitator Role

Medical tourism facilitator role

• The role of a medical tourism facilitator changes according to factors such as :
  • Organization type
  • Population served
  • Client mix
  • Facilitator’s training and education
  • Facilitation type offered
• Every client category has its own needs
• These needs will dictate the scope and depth of the facilitation required

Essential components

• Identifying suitable clients
• Assessing client needs
• Coordinating, planning, and defining the level of care
  • Level of services
  • Scope of resources
  • Patient care needs
• Implementing and coordinating patients to the required sources

Important aspects of the role

• Advocacy and interceding on behalf of clients to ensure needed interventions are obtained
• Continuous monitoring and evaluation of the facilitation plan
  • Ensure that client-desired outcomes and goals are met
• Patient satisfaction measurement
• Creating measurable outcomes data

Essential qualities

• Medical terminology and anatomy knowledge
• Physiology, pharmacology, basic health history taking and other general medical training
• Travel planning training
  • Geography
  • Aircraft configuration
  • Airport layout
  • Minimum connecting times
  • Standard airport codes
  • Standard carrier codes
  • Tariff configurations
  • Immigration and visa details
  • Airline and trouble ticketing refund and change restrictions
  • Hotel and ground transportation reservations
• Expertise in the specialty to be facilitated
• Holistic perspective of the client

Further needed skills

• International protocols and health systems knowledge
• Resource acquisition and coordination skills
• Medical communication skills to communicate effectively with the client and healthcare team
• Problem-solving skills
• Creativity and innovation
• Self-direction

Dimensions Of the health travel facilitator role

• Clinical role:
  • Collaboration with the interdisciplinary team
  • Development of protocols for key tasks or events needed to facilitate client care
• Managerial role:
  • Coordinate client care
• Financial aspect:
  • Access to information on cost of care services
  • Allocated length of stay or the number of treatments/procedures needed to achieve goals

Effective practice

• Access to information on the cost of resources and consumption
• Familiarity with payment systems including foreign currency, wire transfer, refund, cancellation, change fees, prepaid deposits, and overcharge policies and procedures
• Multidisciplinary collaborative approach to handle tasks
• Recognition of the possibility of many case management goals remaining unmet due to factors like:
  • Patient or family noncompliance
  • Lack of available payment for needed care and services
• Continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs and ongoing management by healthcare providers
• Ongoing management by the health travel facilitation organization

Management Setbacks

• Lack of facilitator understanding of the complexities of the disease process
• Lack of a formal training program for the health travel facilitator
• Lack of tools needed for the job
  • Policies and procedures
  • A computer system that can capture and report details
  • Manage health data and medical records appropriately
• Lack of strong leadership or micromanagement by leaders
• Caseloads that are too high
• Poor planning which may result in crisis intervention
• Resistance from physicians to specific requests
• Lack of facilitator understanding of reimbursement and risk arrangements requirements, processes, and modalities
• Inadequate staffing by external organizations

Solutions to identify issues and come up with solutions

• Audit medical records to determine whether unnecessary tests, treatments, or procedures are planned or have been performed
• Review complaints and incident reports
• Interview key hospital staff
• Review and analyze patient records
• Evaluate current data
• Evaluate patient, physician, and staff satisfaction surveys
• Determine additional costs associated with wrong medications, treatments or client placement at the wrong level of care
• Determine the source of increased costs related to personnel, products, or resource misuse
• Evaluate delays in services and consequently added costs
• Evaluate loss of sales or customers and the reasons for client switch to other facilitators
• Determine why high-quality providers may have dropped their contract or refused to contract with the facilitator

Potential outcomes of facilitation issues

• Lack of trained providers to offer the level and type of care required
• Delayed or absent services
• Expensive or inappropriate levels of care
• Fraud and abuse
• Unnecessary readmissions or increased length of stay
• Ineffective utilization of healthcare resources
• Patient and family dissatisfaction with care
• Increased quality of care issues
• Increased complications caused by ineffective or inappropriate care

Quality Improvement

• A process in place to measure before and after events
• Taking steps to make changes
• Monitoring the changes to ensure effectiveness
• Re-examining and restarting the process if the changes are not effective

Technology

• Familiarity with available technology to make informed decisions
• Business process improvement (BPI) is a process used to evaluate and redesign tasks to improve business processes
  • Streamline procedures
  • Save time and money
• Result in lower costs, more competitiveness, a direct advantage to the bottom line, and more cohesive, coordinated client services
• Business process reviews
  • Internal and external organizational activities
  • Creation of business process workflows

Workflow

• A graphic depiction of the process flow from beginning to end
  • Within one organization
  • Across multiple organizations
• Segmentation of each step in the process of health travel facilitation
  • Premarketing
  • Case closure
  • Post-service referrals
• Current “as-is” workflow
• “To-be” workflow to be implemented at various stages of organizational and volume growth of the business

Explore the pivotal role of medical tourism facilitators in this quiz. Understand how various factors such as client needs, organization types, and service scopes influence facilitation. Assess the essential components and important aspects necessary for effective client advocacy and satisfaction measurement.