94 Business View Caribbean - January 2015
Among the steps Rassin and the organization took to
enhance the Bahamas’ desirability as a medical des-
tination was gaining certification from Joint Commis-
sion International, a U.S.-based entity that identifies,
measures and shares best practices in quality and pa-
tient safety around the world.
Other positive factors include having English as a pri-
mary language and being located in a place that’s al-
ready among the world’s top travel destinations. The
main challenge, then, was ensuring that pricing for
medical care was reasonable enough to successfully
compete with other markets like Costa Rica or India,
even though the cost of doing business is higher in the
Bahamas than those places.
And when the prices can’t be equal, he said, the menu
of services have to be unique, which is what prompted
the aforementioned focus on stem cells, cochlear im-
plants and spine surgeries, as well as fecal microbiota
transplant – a procedure whose purpose is to replace
good bacteria that’s been killed or suppressed by the
use of antibiotics, resulting in infection by an overpop-
ulation of bad bacteria.
“We can provide pricing that’s 35 to 40 percent less
than the U.S. average, so that’s kind of the niche we
got into,” Rassin said. “That isn’t necessarily where
the big activity is in medical tourism, which is why we
need particular niche treatment areas that we’re go-
ing to go after that aren’t necessarily the cheapest,
but may be unique to us.”
Rassin’s bottom-line objective is to enhance the in-
ternational traffic to 50 percent of overall system rev-
enues, which is a significant jump from the 18 percent
share it accounts for now.
He conceded, though, that a bump to even 25 or 30
percent would be fiscally considerable.
HEALTHCARE
