Customized service for foreigners available
An increasing number of patients travel to other countries for better medical procedures than those offered at home. Korea is one such destination because of highly skilled doctors as well as convenient hospital services.
According to Ministry of Health and Welfare data, around 380,000 foreigners came to Korea for medical treatment last year. The number has been steadily increasing by 22.7 percent annually on average since 2009 when local hospitals were first allowed to treat medical tourists.
Among them, the “medical concierge” service at CHA Medical Center has been providing distinctive services for foreigners.
Beyond the service that CHA Medical Center has provided since the early 2000s, medical concierge is a concept that combines hotel concierge service with medical services to build a relationship with patients. It refers to a total care platform that plans and provides services that a patient needs.
The one-stop service assists patients with various medical treatment-related activities. These include arrangements for consultation, reservations and medical checkups, as well as other areas such as reservations for transport and accommodation, recommendations for various local events and schedule management.
Before a patient’s visit, the concierge provides consultation on catered treatments to be given here, based on the patient’s medical condition and local doctors’ diagnosis, such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or cancer treatments.
CHA Medical Group runs eight hospitals across the country and has a network at 50 global centers in seven countries including the United States, Australia and Singapore. A cooperative system among the group’s centers helps foreign patients, who have a limited time here to receive treatment from diagnosis to operations in time.
Post-treatment care is one of the most important factors, especially in fertility treatment. So the fertility centers keep checking patients’ health conditions after they return home. If they need additional treatment in their home countries, the centers send the prescriptions and reports to the medical centers there with translation.
The CHA Fertility Center has a branch near Seoul Station, within an hour’s subway ride from Incheon International Airport. Interpreters speaking English, Chinese, Mongolian and Russian are at the center to help foreign patients.
In 2017, the health ministry designated the center as an accredited hospital serving foreign patients — the first of its kind to receive the certificate.