The IMTCC Is What Medical Tourism Is Supposed To Be

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to another one of my LinkedIn connections, who is part of the medical tourism industry. Her name is Christina de Moraes, and she is the CEO and founder of the International Medical Tourism Chamber of Commerce (IMTCC), located in California. Christina has been involved with medical tourism, as both a patient and a patient advocate for more than ten years when she first began her “Medical Concierge” services in Brazil.

She was the President and founder of MedNetBrazil and MedNetCostaRica from 2002 to 2012, and she has been a consultant for the Medical Tourism Industry, as well as a Patient Advocate and Plastic Surgery Consultant for the very specific techniques of Post Massive Weight Loss Reconstruction and Brazilian Plastic Surgery techniques, as well as bariatric surgeries.

Christina has spent 10 years as a cultural, medical, social and business liaison between her patients, her company and Brazilian medical providers, marrying the needs of each to achieve mutual benefit, create trust, improve results and implant ethics in medical tourism facilitating.

She founded the IMTCC in May 2012. Her reason in founding the IMTCC was so that medical tourism consumers/patients, health care providers, and medical tourism service providers could have an unbiased source to guide them on matters of competence and trust.

There are three tenets of medical tourism that members and providers are committed to providing so that patients will have a safe and successful medical tourism experience. The three tenets are:

ADVOCACY, AFTERCARE, AND ACCOUNTABILITY…LEADING THE WAY TO ACCREDITATION

The IMTCC’s Mission Statement expounds on the three tenets and lays out the mission of the IMTCC as a reliable and trustworthy organization committed to the highest standards.

IMTCC Mission Statement

To Formally Declare, Endorse and Implement the Three Tenets of Medical Tourism:

ADVOCACY, AFTERCARE and ACCOUNTABILITY … Paving the Way to Accreditation Standards

Provide a Leadership Role in Advancing Marketplace TRUST and Industry INTEGRITY

Set Best Standards of Practice and Patient Centered Care Delivery, Regardless of International Borders.

Epitomize Result and Performance-Based Membership Standards and Transparent Reporting Practices

Promote the Use of Best Standards of Practice by Offering Coordinated Workflow Protocols and Homogeneous Patient Care Processes

MACSS – Medical Aftercare and Concierge Support Services

Provide Training, Mentoring and Constructive Feedback to Chamber Members as a way to add integrity and value to the Services and Expertise They Offer to Patients.

Create an International Network of Accomplished Medical Tourism Services Providers and Preeminent Healthcare Professionals

Provide Education and Unbiased Advice to Patient Consumers and the Marketplace

Represent the VOC – Voice of the Customer – to Healthcare, Insurance and Medical Tourism Providers

Denounce Substandard Industry Performance, Behaviors and Practices Through Unbiased and Diligent Compilation and Transparent Disclosure of Important Industry Outcomes, Complication Rates and Patient Satisfaction

Celebrate Both Healthcare and Industry Role Models, Visionaries, Motivators and Innovators

Become Internationally Recognized as the Trustworthy Resource to Turn to for Objective, Unbiased Information on Medical Tourism and International Healthcare Providers.

Promote the Three Tenets as a Global Model and Catalyst for Change in the Delivery of Healthcare

As the medical tourism industry is still a relatively new and growing industry, there are problems, as there is with any other new industry, and it is up to the members of that industry to figure out how is the best way to promote and market its services to the public, as well as to provide the public with assurance that their industry is open, honest, above-board, and adheres to the standards and ethics of any other business.

Medical tourism certainly has its pluses and minuses, and there are organizations (won’t name them here) that have not lived up to the expectations of the members of the medical tourism industry, and it is the duty of organizations like the IMTCC, and a new group that Christina told me about recently, called the Global Healthcare Travel Council, to correct the mistakes others have committed. The IMTCC is one of those organizations, and I thought it was vital that the workers’ compensation industry got to know them a little.