In recent years, medical tourism has been developing rapidly due to the characteristics of “cost-effective medical treatment and cross-border services”. As an important source of medical tourism in the world (especially in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), the Middle East has a strong demand for cardiovascular disease treatment (e.g., coronary heart disease, arrhythmia), but local private hospitals are expensive. In contrast, China has developed a significant price advantage in the field of cardiovascular treatment by virtue of its cost-control ability, policy support and large-scale medical resources, making it a popular choice for Middle Eastern patients. The following analysis is based on three aspects: cost comparison, causes of price advantage and market impact.
I、Cost comparison of core treatment items: China is significantly lower than private hospitals in the Middle East
The core aspects of cardiovascular treatment include diagnostic tests (e.g. coronary angiography), interventions (e.g. PCI stent implantation), surgery (e.g. cardiac bypass grafting), and post-operative management. Combining the actual charges in 2024 in the Middle East (private hospitals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for example) and China (high-end private hospitals and international departments of tertiary hospitals in Beijing and Shanghai, for example), the specific comparisons are as follows:
Coronary angiography (without complications):
Middle East private hospitals (USD) 8,000-12,000
Chinese private/triple A international department (RMB) 15,000-25,000 (including high-end services)
Single drug eluting stent implantation :
Middle East Private Hospital (USD) 15,000-25,000 (including stent)
Chinese private/triple A international department (RMB) 30,000-50,000 (Chinese-made stents mainly)
Heart bypass surgery (traditional open heart):
Middle East Private Hospital (USD) 35,000-60,000
Chinese private/triple A international department (RMB) 80,000-120,000 (including international department premium)
3 days postoperative hospitalization in general ward:
Middle East Private Hospital (USD) 5,000-8,000
Chinese private/triple A international department (RMB) 10,000-15,000 Middle East about 50% lower
Antiplatelet drugs (1 month):
Middle East Private (USD) 800-1,500 (imported originator)
Chinese private/triple A international department (RMB) 300-800 (Chinese-made generic/collected drugs)
Note: Middle East private hospital costs include expatriate doctor consultation fees, high-end facility surcharges, and imported consumables premiums; in China, public tertiary international department prices are slightly higher than regular public due to service upgrades (e.g., bilingual medical care, international insurance matchmaking), but are still much lower than in the Middle East.
II、the core causes of China's price advantage
China's price advantage in the Middle East's cardiovascular treatment field is not purely dependent on “low price competition”, but is the result of policy guidance, industrial chain maturity and cost structure optimization:
1. Centralized procurement of medical consumables: significantly reducing core costs
The core consumables of cardiovascular treatment (such as coronary stents, balloons, guide wires) account for 50%-70% of the total cost of treatment. China has been promoting centralized banded procurement of high-value medical consumables since 2019, among others:
- After the centralized procurement of coronary stents, the price of a single stent was reduced from 13,000 yuan to about 700 yuan (a reduction of more than 90%);.
- The price of auxiliary consumables such as drug-eluting balloons and guide wires has been reduced by 80% on average.
The private hospitals in the Middle East are highly dependent on imported consumables (e.g. Medtronic and Boston Scientific products), and need to bear import tariffs (about 5%-15%), international transportation and local distributor markups (about 30%-50%), resulting in a much higher cost of consumables than in China.
2. Scaled healthcare and operational efficiency: diluting fixed costs
China has the world's largest healthcare system (over 1.05 million healthcare institutions in 2023), with a high concentration of cardiovascular specialty resources (e.g., more than 20,000 surgeries per year at Fu Wai Hospital and Anzhen Hospital in Beijing). Large-scale clinical practice brings:
- Improvement of doctors' technical proficiency: the success rate of complex surgeries (e.g., PCI for chronic occlusive lesions) is on par with that of top hospitals in the Middle East, but the time for a single surgery is shorter (reducing the waste of anesthesia and consumables); and
- Increased equipment utilization: the average daily utilization rate of fixed assets such as large imaging equipment (e.g. DSA angiography machine) and operating rooms exceeds 80% (Middle East private hospitals are generally below 50%), resulting in lower fixed cost sharing.
3. Policy support and health insurance synergy: reducing hidden costs
The Chinese government's support for medical tourism includes:
- Visa facilitation: some provinces and cities (e.g. Boao Lecheng in Hainan) offer fast-track “medical visa” for international patients; and
- Payment interface: promoting direct payment cooperation between international commercial insurance and domestic hospitals (e.g. Allianz, Prudential, etc. covering high-end private hospitals in China); and
- Facilitating customs clearance of medicines/consumables: implementing “zero-tariff” customs clearance for imported urgently needed medicines to shorten patients' waiting time (Middle Eastern patients do not need to pay extra storage or transportation fees for specific consumables). 4.
4. Localization of services: avoiding “excessive medical” premiums
Due to fierce competition in the Middle East (e.g., there are more than 50 international hospitals in Dubai), private hospitals in the Middle East often provide high-end customized services (e.g., private wards, one-on-one interpreters, and rehabilitation and convalescence packages), which push up the overall costs. Chinese medical tourism emphasizes “precision medicine”:
- Standardized treatment plans are designed for common diseases (e.g. coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation) and unnecessary tests (e.g. excessive MRI scans) are reduced.
- The cost of multilingual medical teams (Arabic, English) is shared through training at scale, resulting in a lower service premium than in the Middle East.
III、the market impact: price advantage to promote China as the Middle East cardiovascular medical tourism destination
The high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in the Middle East (according to WHO data, the prevalence of coronary heart disease among people over 35 years old in Saudi Arabia and the UAE reaches 18%-22%) and the high cost of local private hospitals (some patients need to pay more than 70% of the cost out-of-pocket) have prompted a large number of patients to turn to overseas. China's price advantage has led to its rapid rise in the Middle East medical tourism market:
- Client Positioning: Mainly attracting middle and upper income groups in the Middle East (annual household income of $50,000 - $200,000) rather than the top tycoons (who are more inclined to Europe and the United States); and
- Typical case: in 2023, a private hospital in Shanghai received a 45% year-on-year increase in Middle Eastern cardiovascular patients, of which 70% were stent implantation or bypass surgery;.
- Extended benefits: Accompanied by patients' family members (about 1-2 people) generated by the accommodation and transportation consumption (e.g., Dubai patients come to China, per capita stay of 10 days, the total consumption of about 30,000-50,000 U.S. dollars), to further pull China's medical tourism industry chain.
IV、Conclusion
China's price advantage in cardiovascular treatment in the Middle East private hospitals is essentially a combination of “cost optimization under the guidance of policy + scale medical efficiency”. With the improvement of China's medical tourism supporting policies (e.g. visa, insurance) and the deepening of medical cooperation along the “Belt and Road”, it is expected to further attract Middle Eastern patients and form a synergistic development model of “medical + tourism + industry”. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to balancing the price advantage and medical quality, to avoid falling into the “low price, low quality” misunderstanding, through international accreditation (such as JCI) to strengthen the trust of patients.