Agency Expands Corp. Account into Med Travel Niche

This is part of a series about TMCs, corporate travel agents and medical travel.

Managing medical travel is like managing business travel, but with one huge difference: every medical traveler and every trip is unique.

That has been the experience for Minneapolis-based CTS/American Express Travel, which expanded a corporate account with a major medical center to include its complex travel requirements for patients flying in from various locations.

“Medical travel is not a straight corporate account – you have to think outside the business travel box,” Julie Tearny, director of account management for CTS, told Travel Market Report.

“It is a very distinct niche for company travelers who have very distinct needs because of their medical conditions,” she said. “Diseases don’t take holidays and they don’t care where you are.”

Expanding into medical travel
CTS’s relationship with the medical center started as a traditional business travel account, Tearny said. The agency handled typical employee travel as well as travel for physicians and other clinical care staff headed to medical meetings around the globe.

Medical travel came into the picture after a CTS exec heard from a physician that the clinic had begun contracting with employers around the country to provide specialized surgery and other types of advanced medical care for employees and retirees.

Getting these patients from their far-flung locations to the hospital near Minneapolis turned out to be too complex for the clinic staff to handle on their own.  

Some incoming patients are well enough to travel, but sick enough that they need special attention from home to hospital and back again. Some medical procedures require a single extended trip while others mean multiple short trips to the clinic at specific intervals.

How it works
To address these logistics, the medical center and CTS forged a medical travel relationship.

“The hospital knows their internal system and sets up a schedule for care for each patient,” Tearny said. “Once they have scheduled the operating room, surgeon, nursing, and all the other pieces of the medical program, they call us to schedule travel to get patients in and out of the hospital at the right times.”

How CTS proceeds from there depends on the contract the clinic has with the employer sending that particular patient for care.

Some employers pay CTS directly, some reimburse employees for travel, some work through third party payers. CTS agents may end up working with the patient’s own travel or human resources department, directly with the traveler, or with a third party.

Need for hands-on attention
One element that never changes is the need for hands-on attention from CTS. Almost every medical traveler has special needs for seat location, class of travel, and changes in travel dates, Tearny said.

Others may require wheelchairs, oxygen, or other special equipment that may or may not be allow by specific carriers.

For example, she noted that portable oxygen concentrators are allowed by most carriers, but most forbid pressurized oxygen containers on board. And the rules can change without notice.

Some patients may not be able to travel by air because of reduced cabin pressure. They need train or other ground transportation. All of those needs can change depending on whether the traveler is inbound before care, headed home after care, or traveling for follow up care.

Negotiations with vendors
Traditional vendor contracts don’t allow the kind of flexibility that medical travelers need, Tearny said.

CTS negotiated contracts that include features like specialized seating, upgrades and additional flexibility on ticket changes. Hotel contracts include similar flexibility along with flexible arrival and departure times

“A solid relationship with your vendors is an absolute must,” Tearny said. “That’s where our travel industry expertise comes into play.”

A different kind of traveler
Client relationships also take a special twist in medical travel. Medical travelers are not clinic employees and not bound by clinic travel mandates.

They have probably never heard of CTS and few are experienced travelers. Travelling for medical care can add another layer of stress.

“You need the right kind of agent to cope with all of the variables and the constant changes and remain upbeat,” Tearny said.  “It takes a dedicated team that does nothing but medical travel. And they have to be available 24/7.

“If you have a patient who suddenly needs to travel on a Friday night, you have to on the spot to handle it. When it comes to someone’s health, you do it right the first time. There are no second chances.”