The survey looked at: why they travel, what savings motivate them, how they compare the quality of care overseas with care at home and how they rate companies that help arrange international treatment.

As it is not an independent survey, results have to be treated with great care.

People from the US and Canada are leaving their country for medical care and they go home happy. When respondents were asked to compare the care they received in a US hospital with their international experience, there was no contest. Of those who had completed a medical journey, twice as many rated their international care as superior. Weighing heavily in this assessment was the care and attention they received from their international medical team and the extensive array of pre-op testing.

Respondents gave very high satisfaction scores to the professional skill, experience and competency of their medical team and to the quality of their treatment facility. As testament to their overall satisfaction, 98 percent would consider offering a recommendation of going abroad for medical care to others in a situation similar to theirs.

The online study was conducted during August 2008 by marketing research expert Right Hand Research. They contacted 1,200 people who had contacted WorldMed Assist in the last year. As only 12 percent, replied, a sample size of around 140 is not statistically accurate, the results therefore must be taken as more of a guideline.

Survey results point to the need to change the "medical tourism" tag as people are overwhelmingly interested in the quality of their medical care and rank tourism activities a very low priority.

While it was no surprise that a majority of respondents have no medical insurance at all or weren't covered for the procedure they were researching, what was surprising is that a relatively low level of savings would motivate them to consider international healthcare. About 15 percent would be satisfied with a savings under US$5,000, and over half fell under the US$10,000 mark.

Although saving money is the primary motivation to engage in medical tourism, credentials of the medical team abroad is the clear determinant for choosing a destination for treatment. Unsurprisingly, the study said that medical tourism agencies including WorldMed Assist, do a good job in assisting people with medical travel.

WorldMed Assist owner Walter Hoeberechts said: “Evidence of high satisfaction rates in this study will encourage more businesses and insurance companies to continue adopting medical tourism as part of their employee benefit plans. People with full healthcare coverage will be interested in medical travel in order to get access to specialists and surgeons. People with partial health insurance would be motivated to go abroad for treatment by cost savings."

www.worldmedassist.com