BajaNomad
Super Administrator
Posts: 4968
Registered: 8-1-2002
Location: San Diego, CA
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US Consulate warns Los Cabos hospital preys on Americans
by: Associated Press
Jan 28, 2022
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. government is warning Americans to avoid a hospital at a Mexican beach destination, following years of complaints that
the facility preyed on Americans by overcharging, bullying them and refusing to release medical records.
More than 100,000 U.S. tourists arrive to Los Cabos at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula each month, drawn my its beaches and dramatic
desert landscape. It appears they are not only a boon to the hotels and restaurants of twin towns Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, but also St.
Luke’s Hospital in Cabo San Lucas.
Multiple complaints have been filed by U.S. citizens saying the hospital demanded tens of thousands of dollars in advance payments, threatened
patients’ relatives and refused to release clinical reports on what care they had actually provided. That led the U.S. consulate in Tijuana to issue
the unusual “health alert” Wednesday about St. Luke’s business practices.
“U.S. citizens have reported instances of withholding care for payment, failing to provide itemized lists of charges, ordering unnecessary
procedures, withholding U.S. passports, obstructing medical evacuations, and refusing to discharge patients without payment,” the consulate said
in the alert.
The hospital refused to comment when contacted by phone and email Thursday.
The consulate urged U.S. citizens to go to other hospitals listed on the consulate’s web page.
There is some evidence that St. Luke’s pays or otherwise compensates ambulances and hotels to send American patients there.
The consulate wrote, “Please be advised that hotels and resorts in the Los Cabos area may have existing contracts or informal relationships with St.
Luke’s. ”
The practice is apparently longstanding. An English-language forum for travelers and residents of Los Cabos posted a comment six years ago that read
“Be aware that St. Luke’s has ambulance chasers out all the time.”
“Apparently the drivers are paid a healthy fee for picking you up off the street and bringing you to St. Luke’s,” according to the post by a
travel agent. “My Cabo friends told me that as long as I could talk to keep screaming DO NOT TAKE ME TO St. Luke’s!!!”
Perhaps one of the most heart-wrenching accounts was written in a formal complaint filed in August by Scott Lairson, a Los Angeles man whose wife,
Patricia Lairson, was rushed to St. Luke’s while the couple were vacationing there in June. She was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure and
pneumonia due to COVID-19.
Patricia Lairson had serious breathing problems and was treated at St. Luke’s for 12 days.
She got good treatment but the hospital administrators were extremely aggressive, telling her husband they would transfer his wife to the community
hospital if he didn’t immediately pay $50,000 and that he would be unable to visit if he didn’t pay.
He put $10,000 on his credit card but had no more money. Eventually he paid $25,000 to get her flown to Arizona, where she died. The hospital has
billed his insurance company, United Healthcare, $1 million, but never supplied the specific medical records of each treatment to justify that
billing.
Lairson wrote that Mario Trejo Becerril, the hospital director, told him “I want that deposit today, you go outside and call your family, whoever
you need to call or don’t come back to this hospital.”
“And if I ever hear about you recording conversations with your phone, you will never see your wife again!” Lairson recounted.
https://fox5sandiego.com/news/world-news/us-consulate-warns-...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
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4x4abc
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4163
Registered: 4-24-2009
Location: La Paz, BCS
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Mood: happy - always
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I went there once
had a chance to talk to the staff
they told me, the hospital was built with cruise ships in mind
I expressed my surprise
why cruise ships?
don't they have doctors?
then they told me that they get a minimum of 50 patients from each cruise ship
and of course they love the Gringos living in Los Cabos as well
I needed an MRI
very expensive for Mexico
when I filled out the papers and they saw I live in a very poor neighborhood, they dropped the price to half
Harald Pietschmann
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