ABSTRACT
Most medical practices and many rural medical centers and critical access hospitals (CAHs) qualify to be designated as a small-and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Small-and medium-sized enterprises, which the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) O ce of Advocacy de„nes as SMEs for research purposes, as independent businesses having fewer than 500 employees account for about half of all employment and economic activity in the United States.* SMEs represent about 97% of all identi„ed exporting „rms and roughly 31% of total U.S. export value.† To a large extent, healthcare exports have not been well tracked, and I believe the market is actually much larger than most people estimate. Take, for example, neighbor markets such as Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Hospitals in Miami report signi„cant revenues from the Caribbean market from healthcare exportation, and it continues to grow.
