The nation has bright prospects in medical tourism as local hospitals have received a significant number of patients from various countries such as the United Kingdom, Turkey and Australia for surgeries due to cheaper costs.

Malaysia has highly-trained doctors, state-of-the-art facilities and a stable and competitive currency in the form of the ringgit which are major reasons attracting foreign patients to flock to this country.

Currently, the medical tourism percentage has increased from five to 7 percent for a local private hospital player – IHH Healthcare Bhd – and the overall percentage is expected to rise to 14 percent of their patients coming from medical tourism.

But the recent implementation of the Diagnosis-Related-Group or DRG system is at present difficult to enforce in a private hospital like IHH Healthcare Bhd but the management is willing to study its implementation.

Previously developed to support public healthcare funding, the DRG model is a standard mechanism within national health systems such as the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

But while there is a pilot system going on in some public hospitals now, and while it makes no sense in implementing DRG in the public sector, IHH Healthcare Bhd has decided to defer its implementation for the time being.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE