Medical Tourism Comes of Age in the United States

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According to a recent ABC news release, an estimated 550,000 Americans traveled abroad last year to take care of their medical needs. That number is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years.

New Jersey-based Ilan Pillai benefited from the medical tourism concept during a recent family vacation in Bangalore, India. "In spite of being fully insured, I was able to save over 70% in out-of-pocket expenses on dental procedures for me and my wife. I was very surprised to learn that the dentist had studied and practiced in the United States before she moved back to her hometown five years ago. The quality of care was comparable to the best dental facilities I had been to in the US," says Ilan.

Upon his return, Ilan interviewed a number of patients across the US who had benefited from similar medical travel. He found a consistent theme regarding the trouble and time it took for them to find information on healthcare providers abroad. There was a lack of reliable sources of information for these people to compare the quality and cost of care amongst various competing providers.

Ilan Pillai founded iElixir.com in September 2010 to address this real problem facing consumers who are willing to consider medical treatment options abroad, but lack a consolidated information platform to guide them through the selection process.

Though the current focus of iElixir.com is on outbound tourism for U.S. care seekers, Ilan envisions iElixir.com to eventually include U.S. hospitals to cater to in-bound and intra-bound medical tourism. In-bound tourism refers to non-U.S. consumers coming to America for their healthcare needs. Intra-bound tourism will allow U.S. consumers to shop across states for the best healthcare solutions to meet their needs.

iElixir.com is building its first generation informational platform and anticipates seeking a first round of funding to ramp up its offerings in mid-2011.

About iElixir.com - iElixir.com - www.ielixir.com - is a free information platform that helps American care seekers find high-quality medical treatment abroad at an affordable price. The platform provides detailed information about healthcare services offered in facilities across the world along with important pricing, quality of care, and service rating details. iElixir.com also offers a forum for users to share their medical tourism experiences and for medical providers to compete for their business.

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