Medical Tourism Blog

When an industry gains steam on the internet, like medical tourism has, directories and search engines start piling up. Reva Health Network touts itself as the first dental and medical tourism search engine. So I contacted them to find what's going on. Their CEO, Caelen King, answered a few questions about what exactly they do, how well they're doing and how they expect to do.


Question: What exactly does Reva do?
King: Reva Health Network is a medical and dental tourism search engine. We allow our visitors to search and compare available treatments and prices around the world and to arrange a no commitment direct consultation with their chosen clinic.

Question: How many clients do you have, and how much business do you generate for them? What is your expected growth for 2007 and beyond ?
King: We currently represent over 200 clinics worldwide, and expect this number to grow by 100% by the end of 2007, and by 400% in 2008. We currently handle over 600 enquiries a week, and generate over a million dollars of business for our members every week.

Question: What services does Reva provide to clients?
King: Hospital and Clinics who want to attract medical tourism patients have to successfully market themselves internationally. This challenge is compounded by the lack of repeat business – the marketing effort must be continuous and directly proportional to the business required. Reva's value is to provide a much greater reach to consumers for the hospitals and clinics, and in turn to provide consumers with a much greater choice in a manner that is easily comparable.

Question: Reva is based in Dublin, if I'm not mistaken. What is the demographic breakup of your website's visitors? Are a majority from the U.S.?
King: The breakdown of our visitors so far is:
United Kingdom - 40.5%
United States - 25.6%
Ireland - 16.6%

and the countries they are looking to travel to are:

Hungary - 31%
Mexico - 18.4%
Poland - 17.2%
Thailand - 8.5%
Turkey - 6.8%

Question: I read on your website that you do not want anything, or anyone, to come between doctor and patient, or words to that effect. So what you do is list the hospital, categorized by specialty, and let your visitors contact them directly. Do you have any pre-conditions for listing hospitals? If so, what are they? If not, how do you know a hospital in so-and-so country is good enough to recommend to your visitors. Do you visit hospitals before listing them?
King: We are very careful not to recommend any individual clinic in our system. We encourage our visitors to research each individual clinic's brochure and decide to contact them based on the assurances that the clinic provides, such as local or international accreditation, how long the clinic has been in operation, etc. As we are not healthcare providers ourselves we feel it would be inappropriate for us to judge the clinic ourselves. We also encourage our visitors to make an informed choice about whether they should travel in the first place. For example, we recently published our Dental Tourism Information Pack which is aimed at informing visitors about the treatments available, the popular destinations and things to consider before you decide to travel.

Question: Thoughts on medical tourism, future of this sector, and the role played by 'medical tourism facilitators'?
King: Medical Tourism is a phenomenon that is growing for a number of reasons. Cheap airfares, greater access to information thanks to the internet, positive word of mouth from people who have experienced it, lack of treatment options locally, the cost of treatment locally, the list goes on and on. There are many reasons why people are travelling already, and many more why people will in the future. Medical Tourism facilitators are an essential component of this business. Trying to research the information available on Reva by yourself would take days if not weeks just for the one treatment you might need yourself. Having a Total Package Provider to assist you with local visa applications, language translation, medical form filling, or organising accommodation is another way the process can be made less daunting or difficult. These facilitators are essentially incubating the industry at the moment.

Question: Anything else you have to add regarding Reva?
King: Reva Health Network's vision is that every consumer will consider an increasing number of options when it comes to their healthcare, including their default local option, other national options, and the international options. We think that the Internet is the ideal medium for this to take place.

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That was Caelen King, CEO of Reva Health Network. A million dollars worth of healthcare, a majority of it going to dental care, every week is pretty impressive. And if you see the destinations preferred by their visitors, Hungary leads the list followed by Mexico, which reinforces two things - One, that Hungary and Mexico are leading destinations for dental tourism and second, that Reva is basically a dental tourism search engine. As the industry picks up speed, more players will follow Reva, but for now, Reva has a headstart, and they'll do everything they can to become the Google of dental tourism search.