Medical Tourism Expert Breaks Down Step-by-step Business Development for New Startup Facilitators

From pre-launch to follow up and outcomes measurement, Maria Todd's "Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook" covers medical tourism business startup, marketing, operations, and medical and travel knowledge, to keep clients safe and satisfied.
By: Francesca Glenn, MHA
 
Dec. 24, 2011 - PRLog -- Denver, Colorado USA -- When Maria Todd isn't busy contracting with hospitals, health insurers and other healthcare providers, she teaches others how to create their own medical tourism facilitator business to safely coordinate planning and transfer of healthcare consumers seeking price arbitration and rapid access at locations other than the communities where they reside. She shares her tips and techniques with new website marketers, travel agents, and hospital-based medical tourism coordination offices in "Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook" (ISBN-10: 1439812839, released: December 12, 2011)

Coming from the perspective of a former surgical nurse, surgery scheduler, and a travel agency senior counselor from the 1970s, Todd invites readers to learn more about the techniques of surgical coordination, ways to develop or improve facilitator skill sets for supply chain contracting, operations management, marketing, communications technology, and quality and safety accreditation, and get new marketing ideas.  She also shares her personal stories from more than 30 years in the business. She quickly goes over the philosophy behind medical tourism and its opportunities and fallacies, before launching into a set of projects for her readers. The projects not only include instructions, but also some information that facilitators might not know, such as medical tourism statistics, how to negotiate with hospitals and physicians, and what they should know before attempting to contract with insurers and employers before attempting to engage in that sector.

The included projects aim to help medical tourism facilitator hopefuls develop their discipline and techniques, such as how to build infrastructure, policies and procedures for managing international health travel clients, and how to coordinate the episode of care from diagnosis through post operative outcomes. While Todd focuses on the infrastructure and benchmarking to improve patient-centered quality and safety, she also instructs readers how to create ultimate customer service and patient satisfaction.  She also covers the non-clinical fundamentals of being a medical tourism provider, such as the staffing, marketing, and special health travel logistics associated with medical tourism.

"For years I've been directly involved in Medical Tourism, since long before the startup of the Medical Tourism Association".  In recent months, a few self-published monographs and booklets have focused on how to approach hospitals for contracts, while others focus on customer service in the most general terms, opportunistically applied to medical tourism, but most are missing the key checklists and insight that comes from a solid medical and travel background that can keep patients safe.

Todd recommends Josepf Woodman's books to learn about the countries and hospitals prior to planning a fam tour visit, but cautions that they are really more consumer oriented and don't cover the necessary elements needed by for startup facilitators."  Todd continues, "This book starts with business startup basics and includes explanations of the procedures themselves for new market entrants who may lack  formal training in medical terminology and specialized travel planning.  It also takes into consideration that the majority of medical tourism facilitators start their business on a shoestring and have no money for industry consultants or association memberships. The book is an affordable alternative to get them started on the path to keep their clients safe and satisfied."

The book is also used to train internal Care Navigators at Todd's company, Mercury Healthcare International, and will also be used as a textbook included in upcoming courses taught at the Managed Care Institute. An upcoming two-day course on Medical Tourism Facilitation Basics will be offered in Spring 2012, in Denver.  The course is open to only 24 students per session and will be offered twice in 2012.  More information can be obtained by calling the Institute at 800.209.7263. Other similar courses will be offered in 2012 tailored to the needs of group health benefits plan administrators and medical providers interested in exploring Medical Tourism.

Intended Audience
Todd hopes that "Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook" becomes a guide for aspiring marketers, hospital admission coordinators and spa managers, and travel agents. She hopes that journalists and media outlets who report on medical tourism industry developments and need a critical guide will also refer to the variety of examples, checklists and best practices in the book in order to ask deeper, critical questions before simply echoing propaganda and hype of new market entrants.

She believes her stories and techniques will inspire readers to improve and better structure their medical tourism offering and make them even better, safer, more responsive facilitators, and not just SEO marketing website companies that book surgeries for consumers.

Availability
"The Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook " is available for sale online at Amazon.com, who is experiencing overwhelming demand and a challenge to keep the book in stock, and other channels including the Publisher's website at ProductivityPress.com.  The book will also be out in Kindle and other e-book reader formats soon, but no date has yet been announced. More than 50 copies sold in pre-release, and it continues to show strong post-release sales.

Other Books Authored by Fellow Mercury Healthcare Advisory Group Colleagues
Productivity Press also released these titles in December, including:

•   "Performance-based Medicine: Creating the High-Performance Network to Optimize Managed Care Relationships", by William J DeMarco, MA, CMC (ISBN: 978-1-4398-1288-4)

•   "Managed HealthCare in the New Millennium: Innovative Financial Modeling for the 21st Century" by David I Samuels, MPA,  FHFMA (ISBN 978-1-4398-4030-6), and

•   "The Medical Services Professional Career Guidebook: Charting a Development Plan for Success" by Donna Goestenkors CPMSM, (ISBN:978-1-4398-4478-6) which covers practices, procedures and requirements of medical staff credentialing and privileging professional development.

Todd's other recent medical tourism title, "The Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development" (ISBN-978-1-4398-1314-0) also just released by Productivity Press, was written for both the hospital and medical group administrators, hoteliers, government health and tourism ministries, private equity investors, travel and transportation strategist, and group health benefit advisor and producer audiences.

Todd and fifteen other renowned Mercury Healthcare Advisory Group members (most also published trade press book authors in the healthcare administration with multiple titles each) are all available for international speaking engagements, government, provider and investor consulting, and book signing appearances through the Mercury Speakers Bureau.

The book was reviewed for accuracy by Gary Wimsett, JD, who graciously reviewed the practical HIPAA compliance pointers authored by Todd.  Wimsett spent six years as Associate Director in the Senior Vice President for Health Affairs' Office of Contracts and Related Services for the University of Florida J. Hillis Miller Health Science Center, and is currently a practicing health law specialist attorney in Gainesville, Florida.

The book also covers medical spa quality and safety, with a chapter researched and authored collaboratively by Todd and colleague Derrek Hedden, and a quality measurement and transparency chapter authored by Lisa Beichl, MBA of Transparent Borders LLC.  Beichl was formerly with the actuarial consultancy, Milliman, and specialized in their International Care Guidelines, and has held executive positions with Allianz, Swiss Re, Munich Re and United Healthcare. Both are members of the Mercury Healthcare Advisory Group.

REVIEW COPIES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE

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Maria Todd has been involved in healthcare and medical travel logistics for more than 30 years. She is the founder of Mercury Healthcare International, the largest health travel management company focused on medical tourism program development for the employer group health and wellness markets, expatriate group health benefits management and emergency assistance for traveling employees.

She is the author of 9 industry best-selling books and has personally assisted in the project development of more than successful 1500 integrated health delivery systems worldwide since 1993. She holds advanced degrees in health administration, is a health law paralegal, a certified mediator, a former surgical nurse and former contract negotiator for a large HMO that is now a part of United Healthcare.
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Source:Francesca Glenn, MHA
Email:***@mercury-healthcare.com Email Verified
Zip:80202
Tags:Medical Tourism, Health, Travel, Spa, Facilitator, Healthcare, Dental, Hospital
Industry:Books, Health, Tourism
Location:Denver - Colorado - United States
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