As a bank, technology company or legal firm, would you ever open a new branch and assign untrained staff? Probably not. You would want highly trained management and staff that understand the nuances of the industry they are working in and the unique needs and expectations of their clients and potential clients. Unfortunately, this does not always happen in medical tourism. Sure, physicians, nurses and others healthcare professionals are highly trained in their respective fields, but they and other frontline staff are often not trained on important elements that impact patient safety, satisfaction and the overall success of a medical tourism program. This includes areas such as medical travel patient management, each staff’s unique role in the medical travel care continuum and how to mitigate risks to traveling patients. The final goal being to work as a team in pro of facilitating a safe and outstanding patient experience across the entire patient journey.
Global Healthcare Accreditation launched the Certified Medical Travel Professional (CMTP) certification course over a decade ago to offer comprehensive training for stakeholders in the medical tourism industry on the needs of the international patient and the dynamics of the medical tourism market.
The CMTP medical tourism training exposes industry stakeholders to the fundamentals of the medical tourism business, as they learn what works in the industry and the right tools and operations needing to serve the needs of the evolving international patient population. This core aspect of the medical tourism industry has been widely neglected, and stakeholders are beginning to realize how investing in patient experience and re-thinking their medical tourism infrastructure forms is crucial for success in the industry.
For the medical tourist, it’s more than just traveling for a surgical fixation of a fracture or a joint reconstruction, it’s the entire experience: How seamless is the pre-travel communication and medical screening? How effective is your international patient department in terms of communication? What are your post-treatment offerings? Are patient’s cultural uniqueness factored into the treatment process, or all patients are treated the same way? Are patients kicked out of the hospital post-surgery or there are concrete plans to help them through the recovery process?
These are what really matters to the international patient leaving the comfort of their homes, traveling miles to receive treatment across borders.
Understanding these questions, which are crucial to the patient experience, is at the core of the CMTP training course. The certification is suitable and crucial for healthcare providers, medical tourism facilitators, hospitality professionals, travel agents, healthcare management executives, insurance agents and brokers, and human resource managers.
For all stakeholders in the medical tourism business, the CMTP course equips organizations with the tools and resources to thrive in the space and deliver quality services across all touch points of the healthcare continuum.
As part of the training, the CMTP n addition to delivering top-notch services to meet patient needs, the CMTP training also offers access to continuing education resources and builds trust with health payers and buyers.
This medical tourism training also allows stakeholders and organizations access a wide pool of resources from top experts and leaders in the medical tourism business. It also opens up new career opportunities as the training upskills business owners and companies to handle greater responsibilities in medical tourism.
The medical tourism training also affords medical tourism businesses access to strategic partnerships, which not only builds an organization’s reputation in the global medical tourism landscape but also yields more opportunities to network and attract more clients.
Further, in the post-pandemic era of medical travel, where organizations are more intentional about their health, trust is a currency. Medical tourists look out for certain indicators that point to an organization’s commitment to excellent patient experience and quality service, and CMTP certification is one such.
Patients are anxious about their health, safety, and overall wellbeing, and demonstrating through a comprehensive training course, that you have the required skillset and knowledge to deliver top-rate care and overall service that meets them at the various points of their needs, makes your business attractive to health payers and buyers.
The CTMP medical tourism training course is comprised of 12, on-demand training modules and about 250 continuing education videos to reposition you as a valuable steward of patient care in the industry.
The learning modules cut across many essential topics including medical travel business models, the various stages of the medical travel care continuum, effective medical travel facilitation, marketing, and brand management, risk mitigation strategies, payment systems and models, and global best practices in medical travel.
For Pamela Wagener, Founder and CEO of World Alliances, LLC, a certified Medical Tourism Facilitator, the certification gave her company an edge in effectively dealing with a wider pool of international health payers.
“One essential thing I learnt from the CMTP training course was understanding the continuum of care and International laws and regulations that applies within the medical travel value industry” Pamela noted
Preecha Panarak, CEO and Founder of World Medical Tourism Alliances, a medical tourism facilitator based in Thailand, said “We want to be the best Medical Tourism Facilitator to deliver excellent of care and ensuring the continuity of care for patients (customers) and provide professional consultation services and personalized assistance, and the CMTP has been a major stimulus for that”
Nihal Terzi, Founder of The Health Store, Turkey, a medical travel facilitator, connecting millions of patients to leading health providers in Turkey, said the CMTP was an excellent way to demonstrate the company’s expertise in the medical tourism space. She further noted that the training’s emphasis on patient experience helped the company rebrand itself to deliver top-line services across all the touch points of the care continuum.
“I took this step to combine my experience with certification. Although we achieved GHA accreditation in Prince Sultan Cardiac Center before I acquire CMTP certification, CMTP helped me understand more about the medical tourism professional best practices and applications,” said Dr. Amr Fahmy, Director of Quality and Patients Safety Administration at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center.
“Professionally having a CMTP designation has provided me with all the essential information needed to build a successful business model for a medical tourism facilitator. Personally, it was an opportunity to get the scholarship and also to further my knowledge from a practitioner and industry perspective on the global business of medical tourism,” said Anita Medhekar, a researcher in applied economics as it relates to international trade, health, and tourism.
The CMTP certification offers healthcare providers, medical tourism facilitators, and other medical tourism providers advanced-level knowledge of the drivers of international patient travel and the skills required to deliver top-line patient experience. In the post-pandemic era of uncertainty, it is one sure way to build trust with health payers.
With the Certified Medical Travel Professional program, become a highly valuable and recognized expert in the industry, providing relevant and exceptional solutions for medical tourists at each touchpoint of the medical travel patient care journey. To register for the CMTP certification, click here.
