Medical tourism to India could spike if global insurance firms cover treatments Sangita Reddy

Bangkok, Nov 8 (PTI) Once insurance companies start covering treatment expenses for foreign patients coming to India, medical tourism numbers could shoot up exponentially, a top Apollo Hospitals official has said.

    "Global insurance companies enabling international usage automatically... and not just enabling... (but) encouraging will help save (patients) a lot of money," Apollo Hospitals Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy said.

    Speaking to PTI on the sidelines of the Garmin Health Summit in Bangkok, Reddy said, "We have requested the government to lead us on a delegation to work with the insurance companies. If they start covering... then you will see a large segment of the Western world coming here".

    "We have a significant number of NRIs coming in. It is a win-win for all sides," she said.

    According to official figures, the global medical travel market was valued at around USD 115.6 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach around USD 286.1 billion by 2030.

    India has emerged as one of the most significant destinations in this evolving global landscape. Industry estimates place the medical tourism market around USD 8.7 billion in 2025, with projections of USD 16.2 billion by 2030, as per government figures.

    PREVENTIVE HEALTH CHECK-UPS

    ------------------------------------

    The preventive health check-up market has grown manifold over the past several years, and Apollo Hospitals alone did over 4 million such check-ups in 2025.

    "Apollo started preventive health care 40 years ago with our health check-ups. Slowly, others have followed, and now you have many players offering such packages," Reddy said.

    Apollo Hospitals is not looking at health check-ups as a pure business model, but a clinical model driven towards deep prevention and early detection.

    "I think AI will enable that. Patient knowledge, the consumerism which is happening, is the other thing driving awareness," she said.

    "In India, what's happening is patients show up, and they're sick. What we're detecting in our preventive checks is sometimes very advanced, where you need an angiogram or a stent the next day... (or) cancers which are advanced.

    "The preventive check is not just a cholesterol. It's really looking at the whole person and longitudinally over time. So it's an engagement model," she explained.

    AI AND PREVENTIVE HEALTHCARE

    -------------------------------------

    The world is increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for healthcare, and India has started catching up, too, though there is a long way to go.

    According to Reddy, the practice should start by picking up symptoms using AI and using these "digital signals" to reprogram one's daily plan.

    "There is genetics, and there is epigenetics. Epigenetics is the result of your lifestyle on your genes. And this is beginning to show as gene expression in your telomeres.

    "Studying the telomere length gives you an indication of longevity. So, our health check-up actually looks at this comprehensively and builds corrective plans for us," Reddy said.

    Apollo is looking at the hospital operating system and rebuilding it to be native AI first to automate unnecessary tasks. "You integrate interpretations, knowledge, algorithms into day-to-day care into the clinical intelligence engine.

    "Then you share and do data research to get net new knowledge. And you combine this with devices or digital layers, like the embedded AI into the ultrasound probe. So, we're looking at it at the operational level, the clinical risk prediction, the clinical scoring so that one can get to better medicines and the clinical research," she said.

    GARMIN HEALTH SUMMIT

    ----------------------------

    US-based Garmin's digital health solution arm, Garmin Health, organised a two-day health summit in Bangkok last week, bringing together innovators and collaborators in the medtech space from around the world to showcase their products.

    Garmin Health Global Sales Senior Director Jorn Watzke said, "Garmin Health has seen great interest from early collaborators like Apollo Hospitals and hopes to continue growing its presence in India across many different industries".

    Apollo Hospitals and Garmin Health joined hands for a scheme called 'Grameen by Gramin', wherein the healthtech company provided 100 watches to residents of Aragonda village in Andhra Pradesh.

    As part of the programme, Apollo is looking at patients with diabetes and hypertension and measuring their health indicators.

    "So, what we are doing is to try to measure standard indicators you'd use in somebody with diabetes and hypertension, but then track it over time to see how we actually make an impact even in a rural population," Reddy added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)