San José will host an international medical tourism conference beginning next Tuesday. Costa Rica is one of the leading countries in medical tourism, the practice of traveling to a foreign country for cost-efficient medical treatment.

The three-day Latin American Global Medicine and Wellness Congress will focus on attracting business from the region's principal market, the United States. Twenty countries are slated to participate, and close to 500 attendees are expected at the Hotel Ramada Herradura Convention Center in San Jose.

Even with the health care reform bill passing in the United States last month, medical tourism providers maintained a positive outlook on the industry (TT – March 23, 2010). Some providers say the bill will increase the number of underinsured Americans, who will look abroad for treatment.

According to a study by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, 750,000 Americans traveled internationally for health care in 2007, and that number could increase to six million in 2010. The Costa Rican Tourism Board estimated 95 percent of medical tourists that come to Costa Rica are from the United States.

The recently-passed U.S. health care reform bill requires all U.S. citizens to have health insurance by 2014. Several U.S. medical tourism facilitators and insurance companies will give presentations at the event while Costa Rica in recent years has pushed marketing of its top-ranked medical facilities in order to bring in more patients from abroad.

Brazil, Cuba and Mexico are considered Costa Rica's biggest competitors in the medical tourism business, and organizers of the event hope the conference will give Costa Rica an advantage. The congress will offer tours of the country's medical facilities and place an emphasis on Costa Rica's eco-friendly image as ideal for treatment and recovery.