by Arlen Meyers, M.D., MBA Medical travel entrepreneurs and hospital executives trying to capture international market share are desperate to find the right business model, i.e. the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value. There are nine components of the business model canvas, and, over the past many years, patients, payers, providers and other intermediary partners have been throwing darts and hoping to hit the bull’s-eye. Not yet. Many models are in play, but fundamentally they come in three basic flavors: direct-to-patient (D2P), provider-to-provider (P2P) and exporting their brand. Medical travel, sometimes referred to as medical tourism or global care, means leaving home for care. It can be inbound, outbound or domestic. D2P models usually involve targeting patients via the Internet or online marketing, and connecting them to providers, i.e. doctors, hospitals or clinics. Sometimes intermediaries, like patient advocates or medical travel facilitators, broker the deals. A second model attempts to connect doctors referring directly to doctors or other hospitals. A common example would be a doctor sending a patient to a specialty care hospital with an international reputation, like National Jewish Hospital for respiratory disease or MD Anderson Cancer Center. Finally, the third model, exporting your brand, means bringing your brand to patients if the patients won’t come to you. Examples include the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, The Samsung Medical Center branching to the Middle East, and several others. Most centers are evolving into hybrid models, using both D2P and P2P networks, as well as brick-and-mortar and digital health technologies to win the war for global patients. While all of this sounds exciting, there are significant barriers to creating a global care ecosytem that will provide access to quality care at an affordable, transparent price to anyone interested in getting it, including international health data exchange and security, dispute resolution, accreditation normalization, licensure and credentialing, continuity of care and insurance coverage and reimbursement. Time will tell whether the push-pull market dynamics, a form of medical arbitrage, are robust enough to give traction to medical travel. Several international research and consulting companies think so. The key challenge is to demonstrate that it is safe, can deliver patient-defined value and uses a business model that generates a profit. Global mobility ultimately plays a huge role in the medical travel landscape. Many passports are quite restrictive in their visa-free mobility and force citizens to obtain visas whenever they need to travel abroad. There is a time saving solution however – a second passport can offer individuals from these countries increased global mobility. Want to now more about how you can apply for a second citizenship as part of a Dominica passport by investment program? Check out www.dominicacitizenship.com for more information. Arlen Meyers, M.D., MBA, is a professor at the University of Colorado, president and co-founder of www.medvoy.com, a global medical referral management company, and president and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at sopenet.org and [email protected] To view the original article click here.