Hospitals capitalize on sports medicine clinics

More hospitals are turning to sports medicine as a source of revenue, not for the traditional patients of high school athletes, but rather aging baby boomers, MedCity reported. "Athletes used to stop when they got to be around 35 or 40, but now regularly you see 65- and 70-year-olds running marathons or playing tennis," David Geier Jr., an orthopedic surgeon who is director of sports medicine with the Medical University of South Carolina, told MedCity.

Although the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine doesn't have statistics on how many sports medicine clinics there are in the United States, anecdotal evidence indicates the sports medicine business certainly is on the rise--and with good reason. Sport medicine clinics offer hospitals the financial advantage of privately insured patients, as well as the down-stream revenue of parents bringing in their children for sports injuries. Article