Florida Hospitals Aim at Boosting Medical Tourism
A Florida Taxwatch report ‘Medical tourism in Florida’ concluded that Florida has an opportunity to bolster economic development by investing in medical tourism. It reveals that the majority of inbound medical tourists to the USA come from the Middle East, South America, and Canada.
The Mayo Clinic says that 20% of clients are Floridians travelling from more than 150 miles away within Florida, requiring hotel stays. Another 20% are non-Floridian, US residents travelling from another state. International clients account for more than 2% of Mayo Clinic Jacksonville’s total patient count, and Mayo seeks to expand international clients up to 5% of its total clientele.
The majority of international patients seen at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville come from Latin America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Canada. To facilitate inbound medical travel, Mayo offers coordination services in Quito, Ecuador; Bogota, Columbia; Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Mexico City, Mexico. For medical tourists from the Middle East, Mayo works with their embassies, which coordinate payment and immigration matters.
In Jacksonville, Mayo has an Office of International Services, which supports medical travellers with scheduling appointments, visa procurement, medical service finances, and translational services in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and other languages. Mayo has had instances of payment issues with international medical travellers, so it now requires a pre-payment or deposit before scheduling international patients.
Wal-Mart contracts directly with Mayo Clinic as one of its exclusive choices for Wal-Mart employees needing organ transplants. While Mayo Clinic’s published procedure rates are not the lowest, the high-value expertise results in less costs through reduced complications and care management alternatives to surgery.
Baptist Health South Florida has been involved in medical tourism since 1998. Annually, Baptist sees more than 12,000 international patients from 100 different countries, mainly from the Caribbean, Central America, the northern part of South America, and Mexico.
Source: International Medical Travel Journal
