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Costing

The honest number is usually a range.

How treatment is costed for you, what a quotation normally hides, and why you will always be shown more than one plan when more than one genuinely exists.

01 Why quotes mislead

A standard package is priced for a standard patient.

An itemised costing on a table with glasses, pen and calculator, one line marked in amber.

Package prices are built around the routine case: uncomplicated, low risk, discharged on schedule. That case is real and it is common, which is why the price is defensible. The difficulty is that nobody checks whether you are that case before the number is sent to you.

Two people are offered an angioplasty on the same day. One has a single blockage and takes one stent. The other has two, and takes two. Same operation on the quotation, materially different cost.

One patient's diabetes is well controlled and they can go straight to surgery. The other needs their sugars optimised first, which means more days, more monitoring, and sometimes a delay before the operation can safely happen at all. Same operation, different stay.

A third has heart, kidney and lung problems alongside the surgical one. That case needs other departments involved before, during and after, and belongs in a different price band entirely — not because anyone is inflating it, but because that is what treating them safely takes.

A blanket price hides all three of these. Our job is to surface them before you commit to anything.

And that is before anything outside the hospital: flights, visa, accommodation, the person travelling with you, and what happens after you fly home — medicines, dressings, physiotherapy, scans, and the follow-up your own doctor will now be doing.

02 What we do about it

We do not set prices. We make sure your case is assessed before one is built.

Hospitals set prices; we do not quote them, hold them or guarantee them. What we do is make sure the assessment happens first, so the number you are given rests on your imaging, your reports and your other conditions rather than on a category.

First

What your case actually involves

What your imaging shows, how many implants or devices it is likely to need, what must be optimised before you are fit for surgery, and which other departments will need to be involved. That assessment is what a hospital costs against.

Then

A range, not a single number

You are told what would move you towards the upper end of it. Not because we are hedging, but because that is what lets you plan — and decide how much reserve to travel with.

What this is, and is not

Costs are set by the treating hospital and confirmed by them in writing. We do not fix them, hold them or guarantee them — and neither can anyone else who is not the hospital.

What we can do is make sure your case is properly assessed before a price is built, that you are shown a realistic range rather than a best-case figure, and that you know in advance which specific things about your case could move it.

03 Where you are treated

Where you are treated changes the price.

There is a second thing a quoted price assumes, and it is rarely said aloud: that you will be treated at a top-tier hospital in a major city. That is where international patients get referred, because that is where the referral relationships are.

What differs

Usually not the surgery

The same operation is often performed, by capable surgeons to the same standard, at a tertiary hospital without the marble lobby, or at a good secondary hospital in a smaller city, for materially less. What differs is the room, the hotel-like services, and the city.

What can differ clinically

The backup at three in the morning

Which sub-specialty support is available if something goes wrong. For a straightforward case in a fit patient, a smaller hospital may be an entirely sound choice. For a complex case in someone with heart, kidney or lung disease, that backup is worth paying for.

This is a judgement, and it should be yours to make with the facts in front of you — not a decision taken silently on your behalf by whoever holds the referral relationship.

04 What we itemise

Everything is either in the number, or named as outside it.

Usually inside the treatment costUsually outside it
Surgeon and assistant feesFlights, visa and travel insurance
Anaesthesia and operating theatreHotel or guest-house stay before and after admission
Implants, devices and consumablesThe attendant travelling with you
Ward stay for the planned number of nightsAdditional nights beyond the plan
Routine pre-operative investigationsICU stay, blood products, unplanned second procedure
Medicines during admissionMedicines, dressings and physiotherapy after you fly home
Scheduled follow-up before discharge from careScans and reviews done by your own doctor at home

The list above is generic. Your own costing names the actual items for your actual plan, at the actual hospital, with the specific things that could add to it.

05 Three numbers, not one

You are shown the smooth case, the likely case and the difficult case.

If everything goes to plan

The figure you will see advertised

Planned stay, no complications, discharged on schedule. Most patients land here, which is exactly why it is quoted as though it were certain.

What usually happens

The realistic figure

Includes the ordinary variations: one extra night, an additional investigation, medicines to take home. This is the number to budget against.

If it becomes complicated

The figure nobody shows you

What a serious complication would add — ICU, re-operation, a substantially longer stay. Uncommon, and you should still know it before you board a plane.

And separately

The cost of not operating

Waiting is a real option with a real price: continued symptoms, disease progression, or nothing at all. It belongs in the comparison.

06 More than one plan

Where genuine choices exist, all of them are costed.

A great deal of surgery has more than one legitimate answer, and the versions rarely cost the same. Presenting only the expensive one is a sales decision dressed as a clinical one — and so is presenting only the cheap one.

Example

Varicose veins

Laser, glue, foam, open surgery, or stockings alone. The glue costs more in consumables but needs less compression afterwards — which matters if you cannot wear stockings.

Example

Knee replacement

Robotic-assisted versus conventional instrumentation. The price differs; you should be told plainly what the difference buys you and what it does not.

Example

Kidney stone

Shockwave, ureteroscopy or PCNL. Different costs, different stays, different chances of needing a second sitting.

What we will never tell you

That the outcome is guaranteed. That a complication will not happen to you. That the price cannot change under any circumstances. That a more expensive option is automatically a better one, or that a cheaper one is automatically worse.

Anyone in this industry who tells you those things is selling, and you should treat everything else they say with the same caution.

07 Before you pay anyone

Seven questions worth asking any hospital or facilitator.

1

How many nights does this price assume?

And what does each additional night cost — separately for a ward night and an ICU night?

2

Which implant or device is included, by name and model — and how many?

Implant grades vary enormously in price, and "implant included" without a count is the biggest single gap between a quote and a bill. Ask what happens if you need two rather than one.

3

What in my own reports could move this price?

Sugars needing control, kidney or heart function, anything that makes you a longer or more complex case than the average patient this price was built around.

4

Which other departments will need to be involved in my care?

Cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology, anaesthetic review. Each is a real cost and a real reason for a longer stay.

5

What happens to the price if a complication occurs, and who pays if the operation has to be repeated?

Uncommon, but the answer differs sharply between institutions. Ask for it in writing before you travel.

6

What is not in this number at all?

Ask them to list the exclusions rather than confirm the inclusions.

7

Who am I paying, and who receives a share?

You are entitled to know whether the person advising you is paid when you say yes.

Start with a conversation, not a quotation.

Send us your case and we will tell you honestly whether a consultation would help you, and what it would involve.

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