Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) is a corporate agency under the Ministry of Health Malaysia. It was set-up to promote medical tourism. It currently has 72 top notched member facilities that provide tertiary care and offer procedures ranging from simple health screening to high end medical procedures like robotic surgery and the use of cyber knife in cancer treatments.MHTC networks with stakeholders such as the airlines, insurance companies, travel agencies and health facilities for seamless medical travel experience for medical tourists.
All private healthcare facilities are required to be licensed under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998 and Private Healthcare and Services Regulations 2006. Many of the hospitals are accredited by either the National or International Bodies, recognised by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua). Examples are the Malaysian Society for Quality in Health (MSQH) Standards, Joint Commission International (JCI) Hospital Accreditation Standards.
Malaysia has gained popularity as a medical tourism destination of choice in the region as there was a significant increase of medical tourists coming to Malaysia for the last 3 years.
Malaysia received 392,000 healthcare travellers in 2010 and 671,000 in 2012, an accumulated growth rate of 63%
The competitive edge of Malaysia is that medical tourism industry is highly regulated by the government to ensure that foreign patients get quality and safe care. Apart from this, Malaysia also offers affordable pricing where the prices of procedures are capped and the same price applies to all medical tourists coming to Malaysia without discrimination.
Japan is one of the top 3 countries that receive the most medical tourists after Indonesia and India.
There has been a 20% growth in Japanese patients seeking medical treatment in Malaysia from 14,937 in 2010 to 17,775 in year 2012. There is an upward trend of medical tourists also coming from the western countries and the Asia region.
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