How It Works

There is no sales call, no pressure to commit and no deposit until a surgeon has actually assessed you. If we think a treatment is wrong for you, or that you could have it more sensibly at home, we say so — several pages on this site do exactly that.

1. Send photographs and a short medical history. Free, and no obligation.
2. A surgeon or dentist reviews them personally and recommends a plan, or tells you why not.
3. You receive a written quote with a fixed total price and what it includes.
4. You choose your dates. A deposit secures them; the balance is due before you are discharged.
5. Your coordinator arranges transfers, hotel and your hospital admission.
6. You travel, meet your surgeon face to face, and are treated.
7. You stay in Turkey long enough for your surgeon to check you before you fly.
8. Twelve months of remote aftercare, with scheduled check-ins.

Before you commit

• The assessment: you send photographs taken as we specify, plus any relevant history. For dental work we ask for a panoramic X-ray; for weight-loss surgery, recent blood results; for female hair loss, a full blood screen.
• Who reviews it: a surgeon or dentist, not a salesperson. You are told their name.
• What you get back: a recommendation, a realistic account of what it will achieve, and the things that might change the plan once you arrive.
• The quote: a single fixed price in writing, itemising what is included and what is not. Flights are never included, and we explain why.
• No deposit until this point. If we have not assessed you, we do not want your money.

Booking and preparation

• Dates: you choose them. We tell you the minimum stay your treatment requires and why.
• Deposit: secures your dates and your surgeon. The balance is settled before discharge.
• Your coordinator: assigned at this point, English-speaking, and the same person throughout.
• Preparation: a written list specific to your treatment — the liver-shrinking diet, stopping nicotine, pausing medication, blood tests to arrange at home.
• Travel: we book hotel and all transfers. You book your own flights, which is almost always cheaper and more flexible.

In Istanbul

• Arrival: met at the airport and driven to your hotel. Nothing medical happens on day one.
• Assessment day: blood tests, imaging and a face-to-face consultation with the surgeon who will operate. The plan is confirmed against what the tests show, not against your photographs.
• If the plan changes: you are told before anything proceeds, in writing, with the revised price. You can decline.
• Treatment: in a JCI-accredited hospital or licensed clinic, with a named, registered surgeon.
• Recovery: in hospital for as long as your procedure requires, then the hotel, with daily contact from your coordinator.
• Before you fly: your surgeon checks you and confirms you are fit to travel. This is not a formality, and it is why our stays are longer than some.

Medical travel pricing has a bad reputation because of two practices: quoting a headline figure that excludes the hospital, the anaesthetist or the implants, and revising the price upward once the patient has arrived and paid for flights. We quote the total, and we quote it after an assessment rather than before.

What is always included

• Surgeon and anaesthetist fees
• Hospital or clinic charges
• All pre-operative tests and imaging
• Implants, grafts or materials where used
• Hotel for the nights your treatment requires
• All airport, hotel and hospital transfers
• A personal English-speaking coordinator
• Medication and post-operative garments
• A follow-up appointment before you fly home
• Twelve months of remote aftercare

What is never included

• Flights. Bundling them means you fly on our schedule at our fare, which is almost always worse for you. Book your own.
• Travel insurance that covers elective surgery abroad. You need it, and standard policies exclude it.
• Meals beyond hotel breakfast.
• Treatment of a pre-existing condition found during your work-up.
• Revision surgery, which is quoted separately — though the aftercare terms in your quote set out what is covered and when.

We would rather lose a booking than take money for treatment that will not work. The pages on this site say so individually — that a gastric balloon will not help at a BMI over 40, that PRP cannot regrow hair on a bald scalp, that threads are not a facelift, that explant without a lift usually disappoints. This page states the general position.

Reasons we decline or defer

• The treatment will not achieve what you want. Most common with non-surgical treatments sold as surgical alternatives.
• Something treatable is causing the problem. Iron deficiency and thyroid disease in female hair loss; bite problems behind a weak chin; gum disease before veneers.
• It is too early. Weight not yet stable before body contouring; under 25 for a beard transplant; within twelve months of bariatric surgery.
• Smoking, where the procedure depends on blood supply. Breast lifts, body lifts and bone grafts in particular.
• A medical finding that needs investigating first — an untreated breast lump, an abnormal hormone screen, an unresolved mammogram.
• Under 18. We do not treat children, including for otoplasty, which is routine for children in their own healthcare systems.

If we decline, you are not charged, and we will tell you what would need to change or where to go instead. Several of our patients came back a year later having addressed what we raised.

What we require

• Registration with the Turkish Ministry of Health, with the registration number given to you before you pay a deposit.
• Specialist society membership — the Turkish Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons for aesthetic work, equivalent bodies for other specialties.
• Volume in the specific procedure. We ask how many they perform each month, and for some procedures — Afro-textured hair transplant, bariatric revision, breast implant revision — we only refer to surgeons who do them regularly.
• JCI accreditation for the hospital in all surgery under general anaesthetic, with intensive care on site.
• The surgeon performs the parts that determine the result. For hair transplants that means designing the hairline and opening the channels personally, which Turkish law requires and the cheapest packages routinely delegate.

The weakest point in medical travel is the moment the patient lands back home. Valentmedica's aftercare is structured rather than a promise to be available: scheduled contacts at defined intervals, with your surgeon reviewing photographs rather than a coordinator reassuring you.

• Week 1: a nurse check-in, reviewing wounds, pain and medication.
• Week 6: review of early healing, and clearance for exercise where relevant.
• Month 3: photographs reviewed by your surgeon against your pre-operative images.
• Month 12: final review. For hair transplants this is the point at which growth is judged; for body surgery, scars.
• Between those: your coordinator is reachable at any hour by WhatsApp. Not a call centre — the same person who arranged your trip.
• Documentation: you fly home with an operation note, discharge summary and, where relevant, an implant passport. Give these to your GP or dentist.

If something goes wrong

Contact your coordinator first, whatever the hour. Minor issues are managed remotely with your surgeon. Where you need to be seen, we help arrange local review. Where a complication relates directly to the surgery, the aftercare terms set out in your written quote state what Valentmedica covers — including, in defined circumstances, flights and hospital costs for a revision in Istanbul.