Lane is used by those with a special pass under the Fast Lane program
By Alexandra Mendoza
TIJUANA —
A third border booth opened Wednesday for users of the Fast Lane crossing program created for U.S. residents traveling to Tijuana for medical or business purposes.
The Fast Lane program began more than a decade ago to encourage medical tourism in Tijuana. Doctors enrolled in the program can ask for a single-use pass that allows their patients to cross the border back into the United States through a special lane where the wait is shorter.
Years later, the program was expanded to include business people, chambers of commerce, companies and non-governmental organizations that promote economic development.
The issuance of these passes increased from 138,000 to 296,000 in the last year, according to Mexican authorities. This 114 percent increase represents an approximate collection of 80 million pesos, according to a press release.
This new booth is the first to open at the Otay Mesa border crossing (access through Boulevard de las Bellas Artes) and the third in total. It will operate from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday. The other two fast lane crossing points are at the San Ysidro border crossing. The booths are on the Mexican side of the border crossings.
“(Users) will have an easy, agile and, above all, stress-free crossing,” said Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero during the inauguration ceremony of the new fast lane.
“It fills us with optimism and satisfaction to be able to provide — with this type of project — benefits in terms of mobility, economic development, environment and, above all, to encourage medical tourism in this city” she added.
The first person to use the new lane was a woman resident of Chula Vista who said she had gone for a medical appointment at the Hospital Angeles de Tijuana.
Under this program, health care providers, dentists or business organizations purchase the passes from the city of Tijuana in order to give them free of charge to patients or business people residing on the other side of the border.
For medical service providers, each pass costs 287.70 pesos (about $15), and for the business sector it is 575.40 pesos (about $30).
About 2,000 medical service providers in Tijuana offer the service of granting medical passes to their patients, said Abraham Sanchez, director of the Medical Health Cluster of Tijuana.
“Many doctors, as part of their advertising, put ‘we have a medical pass for patient service,’” he noted. “That is a plus for us (...) if we have a medical pass. It increases the number of patients who visit us.”
Sanchez estimated that about 90 percent of the passes issued as part of the program are used by people traveling for medical reasons.
Similarly, the business sector seeks to attract investment in the city by offering a quick return for people traveling for business purposes and living in the United States.
“There are certain chambers that issue you this pass because they have business meetings,” said Francisco Rubio, president of the Business Coordinating Council in Tijuana. “It’s complicated for a business person to come to a meeting and have to do three or four hours (back to the United States).”
In October 2019, an investigation by the Tijuana municipal government detected some irregularities in the use of the lane, including people paying for passes when they should have been free for patients.
Caballero said they remain vigilant to ensure the proper use of the program. She added that, at the beginning of her administration, which will be one year old in the next few days, many medical passes were pulled from people “who had no reason to have them.”
“We have been withdrawing them, re-engineering who should and who should not have a medical pass.”