Abstract

Medical tourism, as a trending phenomenon and medical industry, is a challenging and pressing agenda of any health system

worldwide. With uncertain regulation mechanisms and a lack of quality assurance of service outcomes, it is important to

undertake a comparative analysis to clarify and revise current laws and regulation mechanisms for medical tourism at

national, regional, and global levels.

The aims of the study are to compare laws and regulations for medical tourism in Asian countries, including those in the

Northeast Asian, Southeast Asian, and Central Asian regions. The study is qualitative, descriptive, and comparative, using

data from literature reviews, other open-access research papers, and study reports. Comparable variables of the study

are dominant services, the laws and regulations, problems, future trends and scenarios for medical tourism, and best

practices and weaknesses. The study found that the dominant services for medical tourism in Asian countries are different

depending on the countries. The laws and regulations for medical tourism in most countries address issues of accreditation

of healthcare institutions, visa policies, and malpractice regulations. Inconsistency of legal environment and health service

quality is main problem of medical tourism in all countries.

Asian countries seem to be strengthened and more efficiently regulated in the future, have the best practices in health laws

and regulations for medical tourism to share with other countries, but there are common weaknesses. In conclusion, medical

tourism has certain stages of development, namely growing, emerging, and founding of medical tourism, depending on

market positioning and experiences. The stages of development of medical tourism could be determined dominant services,

laws and regulations, problems and issues, future trends and scenarios, and best practices and weaknesses