Obviously LL prices change to certain level based on supply and demand. Pre-2007 and following old forum A's positive experience in Beijing, a lot of foreigners got their LL done there and prices shot up from ~$20,000 USD to over $30,000 USD. Since 2009, the dollar's value has increased but Beijing's LL price remains high. However, seeing as how the admin of the other site is actively trying to market Dr. Sringari in India, is foreign interest in Beijing, which uses similar LL technology to India (the clear difference being the level of CLL expiriemce of the doctors as well as level of attention toon from doctors and staff), starting to wane? If more people are drawn to India, for better or worse, why do Beijing's prices continue to increase for foreigner's. Does anyone know if they plan on continuing to increase prices? Seeing as Doctor M offers CLL with Taylor Spatial frames for 45,000 USD, they may soon price themselves out of the foreign market at this rate. Does anyone else this will be the case? I certainly hope it won't be since I think Beijing is still the best place to go for externals, yet the fact that there are no 2013 diaries for Dr. Xia doesn't look good. Any thoughts?
Also, I am not the same person as Tall on the other site. I did think he had an awesome username (the first word I think of when I think of CLL) and wanted it for myself, so this new LL site has already made some of my dreams come true haha.
Dr Xia & Dr Li (Beijing China) Institute of External Fixation Technology
They probably did about 40-50 foreign LL cases in 2007. As people came and went, I don't remember the hospital's foreign population ever dropping below 20 the first time I was there. There were 5 foreigners when I went back for my IM nail removal in December 2008. They don't seem to be interested in competing with other clinics, either higher-end or lower-end. They could easily lower their prices (they make an absurd amount of profit on foreign patients) but they don't. They could move their clinic out of the Feng Tai slums but they don't. It's illegal for them to import foreign internal nail technology and they either can't or won't make their own. With China's reputation for industrial/intellectual piracy I expected a cheap knock-off Chinese internal nail to be offered there eventually, but it's just never happened, possibly due to the Chinese government's cracking down on counterfeiting of all kinds.
Dr. Xia is an old man who wasn't doing much at the clinic even in 2007. Dr. Li spends most of his time in England. Dr. Peng is doing most of the work in the operating room but he's still the #3 doctor there officially. I'm not sure he's the ambitious guy who's going to take over and become the new face of LL in China. Two young rookies, Dr. Han (a different Han not Lianyi Han on the website) and Dr. Zhou started working at the clinic when I was there and now have ~6 years of experience if they're still there. Maybe one of them will be bold enough to do something in the coming years, or maybe they're happy just working there and will fade into obscurity when Dr. Xia dies.
The dollar might buy you more in some places than it did in 2009, but that's not true in China. The Yuan has continued to appreciate, and the planned deregulation of its exchange rate could cause its value to skyrocket. The Beijing Institute of External Fixation is a microcosm of what's going on in China as a whole now. The days of cheap LL, and cheap everything else for that matter, might be coming to an end in China. But if it's not the place where you can get everything cheaply and do whatever you want with your business, what's its new identity?
I am a current overseas patient in Beijing. My operation to put on the fixators was 27 September this year. That was day one. On day nine I commenced lengthening at .667mm per day and I have missed one day due to illness. Today I was sent to the parent hospital for investigations due to my persistent diahorrhea, and I had vomiting a couple of nights before. I have a strong persistent cough and voice hoarseness.
Dr Peng Aimin was my operating surgeon. I have not seen Dr Xia or Dr Li except where there are pictured and listed on the staff directory.
There is another foreign patient here who has finished lengthening: a female who goes home to Europe later this month. I'm not sure there is a male, but two males are coming soon: an American, an Australian. Other patients come from at times far parts of China and they are correcting abnormalities of leg length and range of motion. Small kids, middle aged and between.
I am perturbed by this: there's not a pet cat or dog or bird around here.
Start me a diary, can you?
This isn't old forum . You can start your own diary here. Just go to the Patient Experiences subforum and click on "NEW TOPIC".
@Thegosis, you can start the diary by clicking "New Topic" in the section to discuss your experience in China.
Can anyone explain why there are so few foreign patients with Dr. Xia? There were no diaries for Dr. Xia in 2013 on old forum , whereas there was always 1-7 diaries for the preceding years. Also, I've seen comments on the large number of foreign patients there.
When I last communicated with Ronne last month, she said there were about 5 patients.
I am considering going there in May 2014.
They raised their prices. Then raised them again. And then again...
Quote from: anonymous on February 10, 2014, 07:12:23 AMCan anyone explain why there are so few foreign patients with Dr. Xia? There were no diaries for Dr. Xia in 2013 on old forum , whereas there was always 1-7 diaries for the preceding years. Also, I've seen comments on the large number of foreign patients there.
When I last communicated with Ronne last month, she said there were about 5 patients.
I am considering going there in May 2014.
they increased their prices, the greedy bastards. One price for locals, another price for naive foreigners. By increasing the prices they moved to middle-tier range on the price chart. So all the low-budget patients ran off to sarins and sringaris, while mid-budget patients can now afford internal LL in ukraine.
The high end patients are with betz, guichet, donghoon, paley etc.
so the winners here are everyone bar the greedy punk Dr. Xia.
Quote from: kusop on February 10, 2014, 10:18:49 PMthey increased their prices, the greedy bastards. One price for locals, another price for naive foreigners. By increasing the prices they moved to middle-tier range on the price chart. So all the low-budget patients ran off to sarins and sringaris, while mid-budget patients can now afford internal LL in ukraine.
The high end patients are with betz, guichet, donghoon, paley etc.
so the winners here are everyone bar the greedy punk Dr. Xia.
From five months spent living in China, it seems that there's a mentality over there that it's good to try and get as much money out of foreigners as possible because it's more money that's being put into the country. It's like a China pride thing. Dr Bai that supplies the micro-wound fixators in Chongqing does the same thing. He has an $8,000 USD price for locals and $33,000 for foreigners.
If you were a person of foreign birth (and obviously non-Chinese appearance aka black or white etc), but lived and worked in China, would you be allowed to pay the locals' price or would you still be made to pay the foreigners' price? Would the ability to speak Mandarin affect the price paid at all?
You must be logged in to post a reply.