Medical tourism is the practice of traveling to another country to receive medical care. People do it for a range of reasons: lower costs, shorter wait times, access to procedures unavailable at home, or the ability to combine recovery with travel. The global medical tourism market was valued at $76.1 billion in 2025 and is projected to more than double to $174.1 billion by 2035, growing at roughly 8.4% per year.
Why People Travel for Medical Care
Cost is the primary driver. Hospital services in countries like Turkey can run about one-eighth of the average price across developed nations, while the same procedures in Switzerland or the United States sit well above that average. For Americans specifically, the gap is sharpest in dental care and elective surgeries, where out-of-pocket expenses can be several times higher than what clinics abroad charge for equivalent work.
But price isn’t the only factor. Some patients travel because their home country has long wait times for non-emergency procedures like joint replacements or cardiac surgery. Others seek treatments that are legally restricted where they live, such as certain fertility treatments or reproductive services. And a smaller group pursues organ, tissue, or stem cell transplants from unrelated donors, a category sometimes called transplant tourism.
The Most Common Procedures
Dental care is the single most common reason Americans travel for medical treatment abroad. A large proportion of people in the United States either lack dental insurance entirely or carry plans that cover very little, making procedures like implants, crowns, and full-mouth restorations dramatically cheaper overseas.
Cosmetic surgery is the next major category. The procedures people travel for most often include tummy tucks, breast augmentation, liposuction, rhinoplasty, and the Brazilian butt lift. These are almost always elective, which means insurance rarely covers them regardless of where they’re performed.
Beyond those two categories, medical tourists commonly seek:
- Fertility treatments: IVF cycles, egg donation, and surrogacy arrangements, often in countries with more permissive regulations or lower clinic fees
- Cancer treatment: Specialized oncology programs, sometimes offering therapies not yet approved in the patient’s home country
- Orthopedic surgery: Hip and knee replacements, which carry significant price variation between countries
- Cardiac procedures: Bypass surgery and valve replacements at internationally accredited hospitals
Where People Go
Destinations tend to cluster by specialty and geography. Mexico is the top choice for Americans seeking dental work, largely because of proximity and the concentration of clinics in border cities like Los Algodones and Tijuana. Thailand and South Korea have built strong reputations in cosmetic surgery. India and Turkey attract patients for cardiac and orthopedic procedures at a fraction of Western prices. Singapore and Israel are known for advanced cancer treatment and complex diagnostics.
Several of these countries have invested heavily in building hospital infrastructure specifically to attract international patients, with English-speaking staff, dedicated international patient departments, and package pricing that bundles the procedure, hospital stay, and sometimes even hotel accommodations for a companion.
How Quality Is Measured Abroad
The closest thing to a universal quality stamp for international hospitals is accreditation from Joint Commission International (JCI), the global arm of the organization that accredits hospitals in the United States. JCI evaluates hospitals across a broad set of standards covering patient safety, infection prevention, surgical care, medication management, staff credentials, and facility safety. An accredited hospital has undergone an external review of its processes from admission through discharge.
JCI accreditation is meaningful but not a guarantee. It tells you the hospital has systems in place for quality improvement and infection control, that its practitioners go through a credentialing process, and that it follows clinical practice guidelines. It does not tell you about the skill of any individual surgeon or the outcomes for your specific procedure. Checking a hospital’s accreditation status is a reasonable first step, but it works best alongside research into the specific doctor’s training, case volume, and patient reviews.
The Real Risks to Consider
The most practical risk of medical tourism is what happens after you fly home. Surgical recovery doesn’t end when you leave the hospital. If a complication develops days or weeks later, you’re now dealing with a local doctor who wasn’t part of the original procedure, may not have access to your operative records, and may approach the problem differently. Coordinating follow-up care across borders, time zones, and medical systems is genuinely difficult, and it’s the issue that catches the most people off guard.
Infection risk also changes depending on destination. Hospitals in different countries may have different patterns of antibiotic-resistant bacteria than what local doctors at home are accustomed to treating. A post-surgical infection picked up abroad can be harder to identify and manage once you return.
Flying shortly after surgery carries its own hazards. Long flights increase the risk of blood clots, and cabin pressure changes can affect healing tissues. Most surgeons recommend waiting a minimum number of days before flying after major procedures, but the economics of medical tourism sometimes push patients to travel sooner than is ideal.
For cosmetic procedures specifically, complications from surgeries like the Brazilian butt lift have drawn serious concern. Fat embolism, where fat enters the bloodstream during the procedure, carries a meaningful mortality risk even in experienced hands. When the procedure is performed in facilities with less oversight or by less experienced surgeons, that risk increases.
Insurance and Legal Protections
U.S. Medicare and Medicaid do not cover medical care outside the United States. Most private insurance plans also exclude elective procedures performed abroad, though some will cover emergency care that arises during travel. The U.S. State Department recommends purchasing travel health insurance before any international trip and specifically advises buying medical evacuation coverage, which pays for emergency transportation back to the United States if something goes seriously wrong.
When shopping for a travel health policy, make sure it covers the countries you’re visiting, the full length of your trip, emergency medical care, medical transportation, and any pre-existing conditions. Some policies make direct payments to hospitals, which matters in countries where you’d otherwise need to pay out of pocket and seek reimbursement later.
Legal recourse is the other gap. If a procedure goes wrong at home, you have a malpractice system you can navigate, however imperfect. Abroad, pursuing a malpractice claim means dealing with a foreign legal system, potentially in another language, under laws that may offer fewer patient protections. Some medical tourism facilitators advertise that they’ll help resolve disputes, but these arrangements vary widely in what they actually guarantee.
How to Reduce Your Risk
If you’re seriously considering treatment abroad, the steps that matter most are straightforward. Verify the hospital’s JCI accreditation or equivalent national accreditation independently, not just through the facility’s own marketing. Research the specific surgeon’s credentials, training background, and experience with your exact procedure. Ask for the facility’s infection rates and complication rates for the procedure you’re considering, and be cautious if they can’t or won’t provide them.
Before you leave, establish a relationship with a doctor at home who agrees to manage your follow-up care. Bring complete copies of your medical records, including imaging and lab work, and make sure you return with detailed operative notes and discharge instructions. Build enough time into your trip to recover before flying. For major surgery, that often means staying in the destination country for at least one to two weeks after the procedure, which adds to total cost and should factor into your planning from the start.