Flywire rolls out payment tool for hospitals to collect from medical tourism as sector booms

As more international patients are traveling to the United States to seek medical care, Boston-based Flywire has rolled out a new platform that hospitals can use to make it easier for providers to ensure payment from medical tourists.

According to Flywire, medical tourism is a $40 billion industry and is growing at a rate of 15 to 25 percent a year as international travelers seek specialized services that are hard to come by in their home countries. As many as 1.2 million international patients are seeking care in the United States, according medical tourism specialists Patients Without Borders, with a large percentage of those paying for their care out-of-pocket.

Flywire said its platform is based in the cloud and offers hospitals a way to give these patients easy options to pay their bills using their own local currency. Flywire also said it offers currency conversion rates that are lower than banks.

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"The payment challenges faced by hospitals and their international patients are similar to those faced by educational institutions and their international students," said Flywire CEO Mike Massaro in a statement. "On the hospital side, the reconciliation issues for international payments can be complex and time-consuming. The more efficiently the hospital can confirm payment, the better it is for everyone involved."

Flywire, which recently changed its name from peerTransfer, already offered a similar product to educational institutions so they could more easily collect payments from international students.

A new report by Transparency Market Research more conservatively priced the medical tourism market at $32.5 billion, which includes patients seeking care in any country they do not call home. The group did note the quick rise of the sector, which it said represented a $10.5 billion market value in 2012.

Lower costs in developing nations such as Thailand, India, Mexico, Singapore, Brazil, Turkey, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Poland, South Korea and the Philippines is leading many to seek care there, the group said.

According to a recent report in Medical Tourism Magazine, New York, Florida and Maine have the biggest draw for international patients.

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In fact, plans are underway to convert a former shoe mill in rural Auburn, Maine into a medical facility that will exclusively treat medical tourists from China through a partnership with Central Maine Medical Center.

Maine hospitals recently ranked highest when it comes to patient safety in the latest Hospital Safety Score ratings by Leapfrog Group.

Twitter: @HenryPowderly