NYC Hospitals Court International Patients Who Pay Full Price

July 23, 2001-New York City hospitals have begun to “battle mightily” for international patients who can pay the retail rate for care, sending physicians abroad to develop contacts and offering patients such perks as translation and concierge services, the New York Times reports. New York Presbyterian treated some 600 foreign inpatients and 2,000 outpatients last year, twice the number from three years earlier, while Mount Sinai Hospital has seen a 25% to 30% increase in the number of foreign patients treated since 1998. As one industry analyst explains, not only do international patients pay the hospital’s full charge—a sharp contrast with HMO and government reimbursement rates—they also tend to come for very expensive, sophisticated procedures. At Mount Sinai, for example, international patients spend $30,000 on average—as much as 20% more than domestic patients, even after allowing for the extra services they receive. Hospitals’ international marketing efforts no longer focus primarily on “princes and business tycoons,” the New York Times reports. Rather, hospitals are wooing foreign patients—many from the Middle East, Latin America, Turkey and Greece—whose government health care systems are willing to pick up the tab for care received at U.S. hospitals.

Hospitals lure patients with interpreters, travel arrangements
Mount Sinai has an international office with a staff of seven, including five coordinators who each handle a specific region and speak its dominant language. The coordinators make rounds twice a day to check on their assigned patients, while other staff members may pick up patients from the airport or “even secure Broadway tickets for the family”. According to the Times, the office staff meets with the heads of Mount Sinai’s medical departments each month to “develop strategies to attract international patients”. For example, in addition to signing contracts with HMOs with foreign offices, the hospital sometimes offers discounts on the retail rate to countries like Turkey, which have national health insurance systems and send a “significant” number of patients abroad. In addition, both Mount Sinai and New York Presbyterian have sent the physicians to other countries to “showcase” them and encourage networking with local physicians (Zhao, 7/23).

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