People who travel across borders for surgery must be protected from negligence or malpractice or false advertising which concerns brokers and insurance agents both. So far, the industry of facilitating patients to other hospitals around the world, without giving medical advice, isn't still very regulated at this time. This issue will probably be addressed in a near future.

There are large regulatory issues involved. Part of the problem is the unwillingness of health insurance companies (and politicians) to take it seriously. Legal issues abound: what happens if there are complications, what happens with extended stays in the hospitals, what happens if you die? If something goes wrong, can you sue? Many countries don't have the protective legal systems westerners are used to yet. There is no international regulation concerning this area of international trade. What is the legal status is, we don't really know?.

Complications do arise in any potential operation that is undertaken. You can't guarantee that health care and the sequels to operations are always going to run smoothly, there will always be issues about problems that arise. And how one deals with those on a patient who, let's say, has made a contract with a company or a broker in New Delhi to travel to Mumbai (all these cities are in India) for surgery, or to travel within India for recuperative holiday and such like, and something goes wrong in the operation itself? Trying to resolve these legal issues really is going to become a quite fundamental issue over the next 10 or 15 years.

And of course it's going to differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It may even differ from where the patient comes from. You can have a hip replacement in Bangalore, or heart surgery in Mumbai, or dental work in New Delhi (all these cities are in India), but you may find it hard to get insurance, or a legal comeback.

Probably the answer lies in International Accreditation !

With an aim to increase overseas clientele and to give a boost to medical tourism, hospitals are looking at JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations) for accreditation. JCAHO is a US-based non-voluntary organisation.

Most of the new hospitals in India are now being built as per ISO norms in order to reach JCAHO norms as soon as possible. Anyway it's a necessary step to occupy the first positions in an increasingly competitive market. Once accredited, the hospitals would actually boost the much-talked-about medical tourism. Once they are JCAHO accredited, the hospitals can begin talks with overseas insurance companies like BUPA and Blue Cross Blue Shield for a tie-up to route patients to their facilities.

Initiatives to get recognised globally and meet international standards are being taken by many hospitals across the world, in different ways. Tie-ups with foreign institutions is one. Manipal Hospital in Bangalore for instance, recently tied-up with EPOS, a German organisation. This will give them the opportunity to benchmark themselves against the best hospital chains in the world. As and when the concept of medical tourism catches on, these initiatives would help to attract more and more patients from foreign nation by medical brokers such as Vibrant Medicare.