| |
US Facelift Fee
Surgeon only, ASPS 2024 data | $12K–$19K |
| |
US Bookings on Bookimed
Year over year, 2026 report | +30% |
| |
Sarawak Medical Revenue
First half of 2026 vs. 2025 | +21% |
| |
|
|
| The do-over she flew 30 hours for |
| Thirty hours. |
| That’s how long Pamela Boyd spent getting from the United States to Mumbai last May, after months of friends asking her the same question: why India? |
| She had her reasons. |
| At 54, Pamela was no stranger to cosmetic surgery (a tummy tuck, a brow lift and an arm lift, all done at home), and that arm lift still bothered her. |
| “Very well-known doctors,” she said of her American surgeons in a case study IndiCure Health Tours published this month. “I wasn’t pleased.” |
| So this time she picked the surgeon first and the country second. |
| Her search led to Dr. Shraddha Deshpande, a Mumbai plastic surgeon with overseas fellowships, including one in New Zealand… and about nine months after her first message (with a pause in the middle for family), Pamela boarded the plane with her husband. |
| The operations took place at Wockhardt Hospitals in Mumbai Central, a 350-bed hospital the group says holds JCI accreditation, the international gold standard. |
| Dr. Deshpande split the work in two to keep her time under anesthesia shorter. |
| The first round tightened her arms and inner thighs, and the second lifted her face and neck. |
| Seven days after that first operation, still swollen, Pamela said her new arms already looked better than the finished result from home. |
| Now the money. |
| Pamela didn’t share her bill, so I won’t guess at it. |
| But the public numbers are easy to find. |
| The American Society of Plastic Surgeons puts the US surgeon’s fee for a facelift at $12,000 to $19,000, and that’s before anyone pays for anesthesia or the operating room. |
| IndiCure’s published facelift package in India starts at $3,950… with the surgery, two to three days in the hospital, tests, medicines, hospital meals and airport transfers all included. |
| Facelift, starting prices |
| 🇺🇸 US, surgeon’s fee only | $12,000 |
| 🇮🇳 Mumbai, with hospital stay | $3,950 |
|
| | | “Very well-known doctors. I wasn’t pleased.” | | Pamela Boyd, on her first arm lift in the US |
|
|
| In other words, the Indian package runs about a third of the American surgeon’s fee alone. |
| Add a round-trip flight from New York (Kayak lists typical fares of $728 to $1,202) and you land near $4,700 before the hotel. |
| Spread over a year, that’s about $390 a month. |
| Still real money? Sure. |
| But a $12,000 quote for the surgeon alone is where a lot of people stop reading. |
| And the recovery looked a lot like a vacation. |
| The couple stayed at Nariman Point, close to the seafront promenade on Marine Drive, and the hospital food was so good that Pamela ended up meeting the chef. |
| I read her story twice, then caught myself pricing flights to Mumbai. (I don’t even need a facelift… my mirror may disagree.) |
| Will her face settle the way she hopes? Swelling can take weeks to fade, so it’s not clear yet. |
| Her arms, by her own account, already won. |
|
|
| HALDENT Dental Clinic, Krakow |
| All-on-4 dental implants · June 2025 · bookimed.com |
| ★★★★★ |
| Craig flew in from the UK for All-on-4 implants (a full arch of teeth held by four implants), and he admits the idea of implant surgery in another country scared him at first. |
| His dentist was Dr. Hubert Trzepatowski, who owns and leads the clinic, has 18 years of experience and is named a Key Expert in All-on-4 by implant maker Nobel Biocare. |
| HALDENT sits just outside Krakow, sees about 1,500 patients a year with seven doctors, runs its own dental lab and is accredited by the Polish Association of Implantology (a national body, not JCI). |
| Craig wrote that the team collected him for surgery on a day off and dropped him off afterward, and that a massage before the procedure “almost lulled me to sleep.” |
| Back home, he thanked the staff by name for their long hours and late nights, and he credits them with the smile he had always wanted. |
| He didn’t post his bill. HALDENT’s Bookimed listing prices a Nobel Biocare implant with a zirconia crown at $2,487, and an All-on-6 package with an apartment stay at $8,371. |
| Craig W., United Kingdom Verified Patient |
|
|
|
| Quick Reads |
| Trend |
| Americans lead the line |
| Bookimed, the platform behind today’s Reader Review, says bookings from US patients rose about 30% over the past year, keeping the US its biggest source market for the 11th year running. Its 2026 report counts more than 170,000 patient inquiries in twelve months (roughly one every three minutes) and total booking value up 28%. The report’s own advice bears repeating: check accreditation, surgeon credentials and recovery plans yourself before you book, even when a platform has screened the clinic first. |
| Destination |
| Kuching is building |
| Sarawak, the Malaysian state on Borneo, earned RM109.9 million from medical tourism in the first half of 2026, up 21% from a year earlier. Medical visitors rose to 48,480 from 46,793, so revenue grew faster than headcount, which suggests each patient is spending more. Kuching has five private hospitals today and three more in development, backed by about RM1.45 billion in private money. The figures came out in mid-October at the Borneo Global Medical Tourism Congress and Expo. This is one to watch. |
| Destination |
| Manila adds a welcome desk for patients |
| The Philippines’ Department of Tourism and private partners have opened a Medical Concierge and Lounge at Terminal 3 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport, where arriving patients can get help finding accredited health and wellness services. As of September, the department’s accredited network covers 13 hospitals, 21 ambulatory clinics and 10 dental clinics, and the country has six JCI-accredited hospitals. Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay used an investor forum this month to ask for more money in care, rehab and long-stay housing. And English is widely spoken, which helps when you’re reading a consent form. |
| Safety Note |
| Check the badge yourself |
| A hospital website that says “JCI-accredited” is a start, not proof. Joint Commission International keeps a public directory of accredited organizations on its site, and a quick search there shows whether the status is current. In India, look for NABH, the national hospital accreditation board, too. Dental clinics often hold national or specialty accreditation instead (HALDENT, in today’s review, is accredited by the Polish Association of Implantology), so ask what the badge covers and who inspects. And read US price tags closely: the ASPS fee figures leave out anesthesia and the operating room. |
