Cleveland Clinic programs could boost medical tourism in Las Vegas

Cleveland Clinic Nevada will add concierge medicine and executive health services to a new clinical location at the Evora development at 6111 S. Buffalo Drive in the southwest valley. The services — generally described as personalized, comprehensive care and screening programs — are expected to open in the third quarter of 2025 and in 2026, respectively.

Concierge medicine is often thought of as “longitudinal primary care” for someone who pays an annual fee to get access to a physician with a smaller panel of patients, and therefore more time dedicated to each, said Dr. James Gutierrez, chairman of the Primary Care Institute at Cleveland Clinic.

Executive care, meanwhile, is a service that allows a patient to receive extensive laboratory testing, imaging, physical exams and other evaluations that drill down further to capture their health at that point in time. It’s often paid for by the employers of high-ranking executives, though individuals can pay for it out of pocket.

“It’s a very deep dive into (their) health assessment, typically it goes above and beyond what someone would get going to a typical primary care doctor for an annual physical,” Gutierrez said.

Cleveland Clinic runs concierge health programs at four locations in Florida, as well as London and Toronto. It plans to add concierge services in Ohio in 2025. Its executive health services are offered in Florida, Toronto, London and Abu Dhabi.

Once the Las Vegas program is running, Gutierrez said he expects concierge services will be able to handle between 600 and 700 patients initially. A similar estimate hasn’t been determined for executive health.

Larry Ruvo, the chairman and co-founder of Keep Memory Alive — the nonprofit arm that fundraises to support the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health — said he saw the news as a step that is in line with the center’s previous additions. Those include expansions in clinical research, an Alzheimer’s prevention center for women, caregiver support services, the Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence and research efforts focused on chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Enticing donors to contribute

Ruvo also said he saw the programs as a way to boost medical tourism to Las Vegas and the region’s health care options. Ruvo said the new programming is something that could excite donors, who could contribute to the $100 million endowment campaign that makes the neurological services free to patients and helps support research, trials and other resources at the center.

“Nevada has had tremendous growing pains and health care needs to be addressed,” Ruvo said. “Cleveland Clinic-quality physicians will address the need. We have great doctors here, many support what we’re doing. They say all ships rise with the tide and I think there’s a very strong need for great medicine for our families and the future of Nevada.”

Dr. Tommaso Falcone, executive vice president and president of Cleveland Clinic’s international and emerging markets, said concierge care and executive health were considered a good fit when expanding Nevada’s operations because the health care system wanted to focus on a sustainable service. With Las Vegas known as a center of tourism, medical tourism for premium care was a synergistic fit.

“Once we finish this phase, then we’re going to explore what our next phase will be,” Falcone said. “But we will be doing this in a way that is strategic so that we can offer what is missing (and) at the same time, understand how it can work with the local communities in order to offer expanding services.”

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.