Medical tourism industry making inroads in Puerto Rico
Francisco Bonet, executive director of the Puerto Rico Medical Tourism Corp.
A year after its establishment, the Medical Tourism Corp. has spearheaded Puerto Rico’s efforts toward the fulfillment of specific projects that are generating an immediate economic impact for the sector, the entity’s Executive Director Francisco G. Bonet said Thursday.
“Once the strategic plan was implemented, we coordinated and identified various ways to position ourselves as leaders in the market,” he said, crediting the island’s private health sector and its commitment to boosting medical tourism, while positioning Puerto Rico “as a destination for medical tourism in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States.”
As part of the strategy, the Medical Tourism Corp. has certified 28 health providers, including hospitals, dentists, laboratories, among others, he said.
Also, the Medical Tourism Association has certified six Puerto Rico hotels to provide accommodations and services to visiting patients and their families.
“We have been able to demonstrate the capacity and competitiveness of our human capital in this sector, as well as Puerto Rico’s enormous potential to build a strong ecosystem in the health tourism market,” he said.
Some additional milestones the government entity has marked thus far was the successful participation in the World Medical Tourism Congress, where aside from participating in conferences and economic forms, a delegation of more than a dozen people also held several working and networking meetings.
As a result, several companies, including PRUSA Health, signed a trio of contracts to offer patient services, Bonet said.
Also, significant progress was made in meetings in Washington D.C. during the National Conference of Self-Insurance Institute of Americas, an event focused exclusively on the market for self-insured and risk transfers.
During the meetings, agreements with major self-insured companies and local suppliers were signed, in the interest of starting negotiations for referral of patients to the island, Bonet said.
