What is medical tourism? Explain its scope for overseas patients.

When medical treatment is associated with any tourism activity, it is known as medical tourism.

Medical tourism is seen to expand rapidly in recent years. India has emerged as the leading country of medical tourism in the world, recently. A large number of people from all over the world are coming to India to access the advanced healthcare facilities offered by highly developed and specialized hospitals, in various cities of India. This is highly beneficial to improve the national income of India, and in turn it helps to develop the medical services of India too. For example, in 2005 around 55,000 patients from U.S.A visited India for having medical treatments.