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When a family is told that a parent needs urgent heart surgery, they do not think like tourists. They think like people under fear, making a decision about money, time, and survival simultaneously. If treatment at home is too expensive, too delayed, or simply unavailable, they look abroad. The country they choose is rarely the one with the best brochure. It is the one that feels most dependable.
India should be winning that decision. On price, the case is not merely competitive. It is transformational.
What the Same Surgery Costs (USD)
| Country | Heart Bypass (USD) | Hip Replacement (USD) |
| India | $5,200 | $7,000 |
| Thailand | $15,121 | $7,800 |
| South Korea | N/A | $14,120 |
| Singapore | ~$24,000 | $12,000 |
| USA | $50,000+ | $50,000+ |
Source: Medical tourism industry benchmarks referenced in Ministry of Tourism working papers
For a family deciding simultaneously about treatment quality and financial survival, these are not marginal differences. They are life-altering ones. Yet that price position is not converting into patient arrivals, and the trajectory is worsening.
Medical Tourist Arrivals to India: 2019 to 2025
| Year | Medical Arrivals | vs 2019 | Note |
| 2019 | 6,97,453 | Baseline | Pre-pandemic peak |
| 2023 | 6,59,356 | -5.5% | Slow post-COVID recovery |
| 2024 | 6,44,387 | -7.6% | Continued structural decline |
| 2025* | ~4,90,000 | ~-30% | Jan-Nov provisional: 4,50,633 |
Source: Ministry of Tourism, Bureau of Immigration, Govt. of India. *2025 figure annualised from provisional January to November data of 4,50,633
This is not a pandemic hangover. Post-COVID recovery, which should have generated a surge in demand for deferred procedures globally, produced a plateau in India and accelerating growth in Thailand, Malaysia, and the UAE. They absorbed that demand. India did not.
“India is attracting price-sensitive necessity markets but under-penetrating premium trust markets. That distinction determines not just how many patients arrive, but how much each visit is worth.”
The composition of who actually comes reveals the structural failure more precisely than the headline numbers.
Who India’s Medical Tourism Actually Serves (2024)
| Proximity Market | Medical Share | High-Value Market | Medical Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iraq | 79.53% | USA | 0.14% |
| Yemen | 56.68% | UK | 0.10% |
| Sudan | 46.64% | Canada | 0.16% |
| Bangladesh | 27.56% | Australia | 0.10% |
Source: India Tourism Data Compendium 2025, Table 2.7.1, Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India. The USA, UK, Canada, and Australia together account for 46.5 per cent of all inbound arrivals in January 2026.
These four markets collectively account for 46.5 per cent of all inbound arrivals yet contribute negligibly to medical tourist numbers. They know India’s hospitals exist. They are choosing not to come, and the reasons are not clinical.
The Questions India’s Systems Fail to Answer
Will the visa arrive in time? India’s medical visa runs 30 to 35 days. The e-visa window is only 20 to 25 days. Transplant recovery and oncology protocols routinely exceed both. A family that arrives for a transplant and discovers mid-treatment that the visa is expiring does not return, and does not recommend India to the next family facing the same diagnosis. This is a clinical barrier wearing administrative clothing, and it is entirely self-inflicted.
Is the hospital genuinely what it claims to be? Joint Commission International certification, which North American insurers recognise, covers a small fraction of India’s capable institutions. A National Hospital Star Rating System, independently audited and operating at the speciality level, five-star cardiac care and four-star orthopaedics at the same hospital, would give a prospective patient genuinely actionable information rather than advertising noise.
Will my insurer pay? Indian hospitals are largely absent from preferred provider networks of major insurers in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. This gap neutralises India’s cost advantage for the patient who cannot use existing coverage. A structured national initiative to empanel Indian hospitals into global insurance networks, including select government institutions such as AIIMS on a pilot basis, would unlock demand that currently has no pathway to reach India at all.
There is also a cost barrier India is inflicting on itself. The referral tax burden on facilitation fees in the medical travel chain is progressively eroding the price advantage that is India’s primary asset. A patient choosing India over Thailand on a shrinking cost differential is a patient increasingly at risk of making a different choice. And the January 2026 outbound data adds a final irony: 29.33 lakh Indians travelled abroad in that single month, up 27 per cent over January 2019, with Thailand ranking third among their destinations. A measurable share sought elective procedures India’s own hospitals could perform.
One Condition That Cannot Be Softened
This expansion cannot proceed at the cost of domestic patients. When international patients generate three to five times the revenue per bed, the incentive to redirect existing capacity is structural. Ring-fenced domestic bed quotas, mandatory public health contributions as a licensing condition, and enforceable price transparency norms are not optional. They are the foundation on which a sustainable sector can be built.
The world is searching for healthcare that is timely, trustworthy, and affordable. India has the clinical talent, the price advantage, the pharmaceutical depth, and the cultural infrastructure for recovery that no competitor fully possesses in combination. What it has not yet built is the surrounding architecture of confidence. Until that changes, India will keep holding the strongest cost card in medical tourism, and keep losing the game.
Author Details-
Pratik B. Bavi
Public Policy Strategist and Advisor to the Hon. Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra.
pratikbavi.in | +91 7767889008 | pratikbbavi@gmail.com
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.