Planning Medical Travel to China: Visa, Money, Hospitals
This is the practical half of the journey: the visa, the money, the phone, the food, and what actually happens when you walk through the hospital door on the first morning. Read it even if you’re hiring us to handle every bit of it. You should know what we’re doing on your behalf, and you should be able to check our work.
Visa & Entry
An M visa covers treatment. An S visa covers family travelling with you. We issue the invitation letter, and depending on your passport you may not need a visa at all — China’s visa-free list has grown considerably, and the 240-hour visa-free transit covers a surprising number of short trips.
The answer for an Indonesian passport is not the answer for a Russian one, and neither is the answer for a Gulf passport. So we write them separately rather than giving you a general article that’s wrong for you specifically.
Money &
Payment
Chinese hospitals run on deposits. Mobile payment is the default and cash is increasingly awkward. Foreign cards now work with Alipay and WeChat Pay, but the set-up has steps, and doing it at a hospital counter on your first morning is the wrong time to learn.
Do it before you fly. We’ll walk you through it, and we’ll tell you what currently works from your country, because that changes more often than anyone would like.
Inside a Chinese hospital
Some of it will surprise you. There may be another patient in the consultation room. The doctor will talk faster than you expect and give you less time than you’re used to, because there are ninety people outside. The waiting area is crowded and loud, and at 7:40am it looks like nothing you’ve seen in a private hospital brochure.
This is the page nobody else in this industry will write. Plenty of facilitators steer every patient to a soft-lit private hospital so they never have to describe a busy public one. When your case calls for a public Grade-A tertiary hospital — and for serious surgery it often does — we owe you an honest description of the room you’ll be standing in on Tuesday morning. The medicine is superb. The waiting room is not. You should know both before you get on the plane, not after.
Food, faith & family
We’ll also tell you plainly what we can and can’t arrange in your particular city before you book, because the honest answer is different in Guangzhou than it is in Beijing, and you should hear that from us now rather than discover it later.
On family: most of our patients travel with at least one person. Ward visiting rules, overnight arrangements and accommodation are all covered, and they’re covered before you arrive.
Before you fly
Arrive a day early if you can. The first appointment is easier when you’ve slept.
