Latvia Medical Tourism and Telemedicine: 2022 Trends and Revenue Analysis

In 2022, the restrictions related to the Covid 19 pandemic encouraged medical institutions to develop and focus more on telemedicine, which can be evaluated as a positive step, taking into account the general trends of globalization and digitization in the medical sector and the potential of this field. However, the largest revenues for medical institutions in recent years have been obtained from health tourists who visited Latvia in person (telemedicine services make up about 20% of the total expenses of health tourists), informs the Ministry of Health.

Health tourists have used more expensive medical services in person – bariatric surgery, infertility treatment and medical insemination, plastic surgery, dentistry and others. In 2022, a total of about 9,000 foreigners received medical services in person in Latvia, including 1,765 from Great Britain, 729 from Lithuania, 701 from Ukraine and 592 from Germany.

Telemedicine services were used by around 33,000 health tourists in 2022, the most from Argentina – 3,422, Great Britain – 2,811, Mexico – 2,745, Spain – 2,192, Romania – 2020. The total revenue for the services received in person reached 9.1 million euros, but for telemedicine – 2.2 million euros, according to the data of the Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Analyzing Latvia’s competitiveness in the field of health care services export, it was concluded that the most important competitors of Latvia are Lithuania, Estonia and Turkey.

A health tourist is a natural person who travels outside the country of his permanent residence and who receives planned medical services in Latvia that are not covered by the state budget. Health tourism promotes investments in the private medical sector, the demand for high-quality medical and health care services increases, the diversity, quality and accessibility of existing services to local residents is promoted, explains the Ministry of Health.

The export of healthcare services ensures the inflow of foreign capital into the Latvian economy. The data of the Bank of Latvia show that in the last three years, the total expenses of foreign tourists in Latvia for medical services have increased rapidly, reaching almost 34 million euros in 2022.

2023-11-07 12:42:00
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