Costa Rica Health Care Making Investments for Foreign Retirees

 

But development for this demographic does not mean the general population will be excluded. While the motivation for investing in the Costa Rica health care infrastructure is based on attracting the US retirement population, all other residents whether on vacation or living here can use the same Costa Rican healthcare facilities for themselves. Once an infrastructure is in place, along with the processes for getting permission from the Costa Rican government to build and offer health care services, many other health related companies will begin investing in Costa Rica. Right now, to open a health care related business the required red-tape process is choking these investments and now it looks that the Costa Rica government will do its part to alleviate this.

Last year, medical tourism attracted 30,000 visitors to Costa Rica, according to government data. That number is expected to increase as health care costs continue to rise. The U.S. is expected to generate 1.3 million medical tourists in 2011, according to a report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, which ranks Costa Rica HealthCare in the top 10 destinations for medical tourism.

Until recently, most of the traffic in the past has been young people looking for cosmetic surgery and dental work, not seniors, Deloitte says.

"With health care at the center of attention in the U.S. this concept could certainly gain ground if implemented properly", Panama developer Sam Taliaferro notes in his Panama Investor Blog. "If Obamacare gets legs one area that you can be sure will be left out in the cold is alternative health care practitioners. I bet they will head south with technology and skills".

(For the record, the World Health Organization ranks Costa Rica’s health care system at 36th in the world, one spot ahead of the United States).

Based on post here