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Medical Tourism is Thriving
Greetings from the O.R.: Florida's medical facilities are cultivating a thriving business among foreigners seeking healthcare. About 400,000 patients visited the U.S. in 2008.
Marketing — with Laser Precision
The Laser Spine Institute, an ambulatory care center in Tampa that offers minimally invasive laser surgery as an alternative to conventional back surgery to correct neck and spine problems, has conducted information seminars as far away as Canada to attract patients. The rapidly expanding company also operates a 30,000-sq.-ft. call center adjacent to its medical facility and has an aggressive internet marketing campaign. Bill Horne, CEO of the Laser Spine Institute, says the company gets about 450,000 hits on its website per month. Around 9,000 of those visitors fill out an electronic contact sheet.
The aggressive marketing has paid off. Ultimately, about 70% of the facility’s customers come either from foreign countries or other U.S. states, and LSI has grown from nine employees when it opened in March 2005 to around 350 today. The company, on track to perform around 5,500 surgical procedures in 2009 at an average cost of about $30,000, just opened its second center in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Horne says his international patients’ spending benefits more than the Spine Institute. “The Hyatt, the Holiday Inn, the Radisson and the Chase Suites hotel right next to us — we’ve got to be their biggest client by far. There’s just thousands of room nights that we’re doing every year there.”
About 70% of the Laser Spine Institute’s patients are from other states
and countries.
