For many people in the United States and Canada, the decision of traveling to medical tourism destinations such as Costa Rica is usually made after doing online research. Some patients are able to get word-of-mouth information from friends, relatives or associates who have experienced Costa Rica and are knowledgeable about the medical tourism industry, but this is hardly the norm; most medical tourists get their information by entering queries on major search engines such as Google and Bing.

The medical tourism industry is fueled by elective procedures such as cosmetic surgery, followed by major dental procedures and treatments that are not covered by medical insurance plans. Another subset of patients become medical tourists because they choose to undergo low-risk treatments such as ambulatory surgery while spending time on vacation.

Since most potential medical tourists begin their online research on Google and Bing, it stands to reason that they will very likely click on the topmost listings on the search engine results page (SERP). Those listings get top SERP placement through the process of search engine optimization (SEO). For example, a prospective medical tourist considering bariatric weight loss surgery in Costa Rica may enter a search queries such as “doctor reviews Costa Rica· or “how to find a surgeon in Costa Rica.”

You need to be careful with what you read as sites like Costa Rica Medical Guide is a bias 3rd party privately owned Internet property managed by Patrick Goodness of the The Goodness Dental Clinic to promote their own clinic. Attracting medical tourism patients with false advertising from the United States and Canada is the focus , which many have been carefully designed with an excellent SEO strategy to ensure that it always appears at the top of the SERP for terms related to medical tourism in Costa Rica.