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Medical tourism is a price-dependant phenomenon that has markedly increased over the last few years. A vast majority of cosmetic surgery companies are offering their services that include cosmetic surgery procedures are popping up all over the world. These offers mainly include clinics with good equipment and well prepared specialists. Because cosmetic surgery procedures are not covered by insurance, price is the major aspect that influences selling of such procedures. This is the main reason why people go to different countries in order to get what they want.
Cosmetic surgery prices differ in every country. The cost of such operations in India, Thailand or South Africa can be one-tenth of what it is in the United States or Western Europe, and sometimes even less. For example, a full facelift that would cost $20,000 in the U.S. runs about $1,250 in South Africa. This difference in prices is huge and it makes the biggest influence on people’s decision to go for cosmetic surgery abroad.
Also, there is a big difference between plastic surgery clinics. On the one hand, a clinic can have a nice geographical position. On the other hand, it may lack the number of doctors who are assisted by registered nurses per patient. However, there are clinics that provide single-patient rooms that are comparable to guestrooms in four-star hotels.
There are many popular cosmetic surgery tourism destinations: Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand. These destinations can offer everything from nice scenic tour to well developed plastic surgery services.
Ten years ago, cosmetic surgery tourism was not popular enough to be noticed. Today, more than 250,000 patients per year visit Singapore, which is one of the most popular places for users of plastic surgery, nearly half of them are from the Middle East. One of the most noticeable examples of the growing popularity of plastic surgery are the United States. Here, in 2004 about 88 percent of plastic surgery patients were women. The most popular procedures for women are: breast augmentation, liposuction, facelift, eyelid surgery, and nose reshaping.
It is thought that very soon cosmetic surgery tourism will be attractive even more and will have popular prices all over the world. For this reason, numbers of patients are likely to grow. Patients in different countries will be more eager to take advantage of cosmetic surgery abroad.
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