The hospital suite life
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

A hospital room with crown molding, French furnishings, luxury linens and nary a bleeping, blinking gadget in sight? Welcome to the luxury suite.

Many large university hospitals, as well as world-renowned facilities such as the Mayo and Cleveland clinics, set aside suites for high-profile patients who want top-of-the-line accommodations to match their state-of-the-art medical care.

For an additional daily fee of $400 to $1,500 above what insurance picks up, you can wine and dine by candlelight on gourmet food prepared by a private chef, have the daily newspaper delivered to your door, enjoy 300 thread-count sheets, and have the family visit anytime or even stay with you.

In-room fax and Internet? But of course! Access to a concierge, hair stylist, masseuse? You bet. A shoeshine by a GI intern? OK, so there are limits.

Nonetheless, pamper suites are part of the fabric of the modern hospital. Forbes magazine even compiled a list of the best that included the Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Mount Sinai in New York City and Massachusetts General in Boston.

Suites became de rigueur in top-notch U.S. hospitals during the 1970s and '80s, in part to accommodate the needs of foreign royalty such as the Shah of Iran, as well as other high-profile patients. Their popularity expanded in the 1990s with the advent of upscale private clinics and specialty spas.

Dennis Brimhall, president and CEO of the new University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, added four suites and has plans for four more, which will represent about three percent of his rooms. Cost on top of insurance: $700 per day.

When his architects were designing locations for monitors and medical gadgets, Brimhall interceded. "I hauled up the Four Seasons Hotel Web site and said, 'That's what I want,'" he says. "You don't have any sense whatsoever that you're in a hospital."

Was he concerned that the suites might be perceived as creating a double standard in health care?

"Here's how we see it: We have a significant number of patients who are willing to pay for those additional amenities, just as someone is willing to pay for first class from coach, and those patients are now going out of state to buy those amenities. If they are willing to pay for them, why wouldn't we be willing to provide them here?"

Betting on luxury hospitals
Kaveh Safari, chief medical officer of Solucient, a health care database and information company, says hospital luxury suites have much in common with the Las Vegas high-roller suite.

"What they are often trying to do is attract a high-profile client. They might actually take a loss on it on the theory that if they can say that a high-profile clientele came there, it must be a good hospital. In their strategic planning, they don't do this at all as a revenue thing. They might do it as a marketing thing, as an expense instead of a source of income."

Is there any truth to the perception that patients in the palatial wing receive better health care? Not a chance, says Safari.

"Everybody in the hospital who is taking medical care of you is the same; the nurses still rotate, the X-ray and OR staff is the same. All the mistakes that happen are the same. People stay there because they want to have a more comfortable bed and enjoy their family without having to compete with everybody else," he says.

Brimhall agrees: "They may get a better experience, which they are willing to pay for, but once that patient goes into the operating room, whether they are indigent or have all the money in the world, nobody knows and nobody cares.

"I don't believe for one second that when it comes to the health care, Mrs. Gotrocks is getting better technical care than the uninsured patient. The difference is, she may get it sooner and she may get more preventative care, but that's a public policy problem with how screwed up health care is in this country. To blame the providers for that is nonsense."

Safari predicts that luxury hospital suites, while flashy, may ultimately disappear altogether for one simple reason: No one wants to linger in a hospital.

"More and more, people don't want to stay in a hospital and be comfortable; they want to get out. So there's really no point in building a luxury suite, because even if you're (Intel chief) Andy Grove or Bill Gates, your goal is to get out of the hospital, not to bring your family and camp out in the hospital," Safari says.

"And if you're rich enough, instead of going to a hospital, you'll bring the hospital to your house. If you thought that you were going to have two months of extensive therapy, including a ventilator, you could have it done at your house. You realize that, if you're rich enough, why be in an institution?"

Jay MacDonald is a contributing editor in Mississippi.