Cancer Treatment Centers of America is banking on the consumer-directed healthcare movement to fuel its planned expansion, believing that patients will opt for facilities that offer conventional as well as alternative cancer treatment, reports the Chicago Tribune. The privately owned company currently has three cancer hospitals in Zion, Ill.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Philadelphia, and has submitted a proposal to build a $76 million hospital in the Seattle suburb of Kent, while looking for additional sites in the Southeast and Southwest. With 95% of its business consisting of patient self-referrals, CTCA spends $35 million annually on direct-to-consumer advertising and offers such patient amenities as organic food, massage, and laugh and vitamin therapies. “At most organizations, the doctor is the center of the healthcare system and that is not the case here,” Edgar Staren, CTCA’s chief medical officer, told the Tribune. Community hospitals in Kent, Wash., however, are trying to block CTCA from building a new oncology hospital by making the case to state regulators that the area has ample cancer services. CTCA vows to go to court if its proposal is turned down.
