Language capacity
For every promised market, ask who answers — by name.
Medical-tourism guide
How to Choose a Medical Tourism Agency
Choosing an agency in medical tourism is not a matter of liking a portfolio. It comes down to four questions: which markets can they answer in the local language, who carries the regulatory risk, how do they define success, and where do they draw the line on patient data.
This guide was not written to sell our own service. We score poorly against some of the criteria below, and we have said where.
The point is to hand you the questions worth asking when comparing proposals. Ask us the same ones.
Which questions should you ask?
Most agency conversations begin in the wrong place: past work, team size, price. Those tell you something, but they do not discriminate between suppliers. The six questions below do.
For each we have written what a strong answer sounds like and which answer is a warning sign. A strong answer is rarely the most confident one; usually it is the one that states a limit.
| Question | What a strong answer sounds like | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Who replies in my target market’s language? | A named person on the team or a standing field editor | “We will handle it with translation”, or the question deflected |
| Who screens ad copy against regulation? | Platform policy and promotion regulation checked separately | Relying on the platform’s approval alone |
| How do you define success? | Qualified enquiries the institution can act on, defined in writing | Clicks, impressions or raw lead volume |
| Where does patient data sit? | CRM for contact only; health data separate with controlled access | A proposal to consolidate everything into one system |
| Who owns the ad account and the data? | Opened in the institution’s name and left with it at the end | The agency running it from its own account |
| When would you tell us not to start? | Concrete prerequisites, listed and given in writing | “It is suitable for every institution” |
Which promises are warning signs?
Three promise patterns recur in this sector, and each carries both regulatory and commercial risk. Hearing one is not a reason to end the meeting, but it is a reason to ask for the claim in writing.
An agency guaranteeing you an outcome has not thereby assumed your regulatory risk. Usually the opposite is true.
Promises worth asking to see in writing
- A guaranteed number of patients or appointments
- A committed position in search rankings
- A guarantee of appearing in AI answer engines
- A fixed package price independent of market and language count
- Unverifiable client names, ratios or case metrics
- A recommendation to use testimonials or before-and-after images in ads
Is your institution ready?
This is the question that actually decides the outcome. In an unprepared institution even a strong agency burns budget; in a prepared one even a mediocre campaign returns something.
The list below is the same one we work through in a first meeting. Your answers never leave your browser.
Medical tourism readiness checklist
Each box you tick marks an area you are ready in. The score is not a grade; it is a map of which gap should be closed before any advertising spend.
Authorisation and eligibility
Market and language
Enquiry and operations
Measurement and data
0/0items ready
Close these before advertising
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent to a server, and you are not asked for contact details.
Where are we weak?
We were advised to remove this section. We kept it. Applying the criteria above to ourselves produces the following.
Turkish and English sit directly in our team; German, Arabic, French and Russian run through field editors, which means our response time in those languages is longer than in the first two. We publish no case studies, because we do not share numbers without client approval. We do not guarantee outcomes, and we decline work from institutions that require one.
For an agency, these can reasonably be read as disadvantages. Weigh them when you compare.
Risk allocation
Put in writing who is responsible if non-compliant copy is published.
Transferability
Contract that accounts and data stay with the institution at the end.
Frequently asked questions
What institutions ask most about this
Must we work with a medical-tourism specialist agency?
Not necessarily, but working with an agency that does not know promotion regulation or platform policy costs you time in rejected ads and rewritten copy. Judge sector knowledge from the answers to your questions, not from the claim itself.
Is it reasonable to ask for references?
Reasonable, but limited. Most institutions in healthcare prefer their name not to be shared, so an absence of references is not by itself a negative signal. Ask instead for a written example of scope and deliverables.
Should we collect several proposals?
Yes, but define the scope yourself so the proposals are comparable. When each agency writes its own scope, the prices cannot be read against each other.
What is the most important contract clause?
Termination and handover. It must state in writing that the ad account, data, domain, content and reports remain with the institution when the engagement ends.
Should the agency check our authorisation?
Yes. An agency that builds campaigns without verifying authorisation status is leaving you exposed. Ask whether that check is part of their process.
How soon should we expect results?
In advertising, the first meaningful data usually appears within four to six weeks. On the search visibility and content side it is measured in months. Question any proposal promising faster.
What should we watch when changing agencies?
Ask for the handover list up front: account access, conversion definitions, negative keyword lists, landing pages and the reporting schema. Do not close the final payment before it is delivered.