Reference
Medical travel glossary
Medical travel has its own dialect — half healthcare, half immigration, half payments. These are the terms you will meet in your first week of research, defined the way we would explain them to a patient on a call.
Facilitator
An organization that coordinates a patient’s treatment journey — shortlisting hospitals, obtaining quotes, handling visa paperwork, travel and admission logistics — without providing medical care itself. Compare broker and agent: the words are used loosely across the industry, so ask who pays whoever uses them.
Broker / agent
Loosely: intermediaries between patients and hospitals. In practice “broker” often signals a commission-paid middleman with little visibility into clinical quality. The label matters less than the payment structure — see facilitator.
MVT (Medical Value Travel)
The Indian government’s term for organized medical travel into India — the “V” signalling value for money. The national programme (“Heal in India”), its portal and facilitator registration all use this vocabulary.
Heal in India portal
The government-backed one-stop portal for medical travel into India, run under the Services Export Promotion Council: registered hospitals, registered facilitators, patient-journey support. A registration signal — not a ranking.
NABH
National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers — India’s national hospital accreditation body. The baseline credential of a serious Indian hospital; verify via the nabh.co directory, not the website badge.
NABH entry-level (SHCO) certification
A lighter NABH standard for Small Healthcare Organisations (SHCOs) — a different, less demanding audit than full NABH accreditation. When a hospital says “NABH”, ask which.
JCI
Joint Commission International — the US-origin international accreditation. Rare in India (a few dozen hospitals); verify any claim on JCI’s public Quality Check registry.
NABL
The accreditation board for testing and calibration laboratories — the lab counterpart of NABH. If your diagnosis hinges on pathology, ask for the hospital lab’s NABL status by name.
MVTF empanelment
NABH’s Medical Value Travel Facilitator programme: an audit-and-registration scheme for facilitators (checklist, published fees). Converts “trust us” into a verifiable credential for the coordination layer.
VIL (Visa Invitation Letter)
The hospital-issued letter that anchors a medical-visa application: names the patient, the treatment, the expected duration. The keystone document — coordinated by your facilitator, issued by the hospital. Attendants need their own letters.
e-Medical visa
India’s online medical visa for eligible nationalities: apply on the official portal (indianvisaonline.gov.in only), hospital letter required, attendants covered by a parallel category. Beware lookalike visa-fee websites.
AYUSH visa (AY-1)
The visa category for treatment under India’s traditional-medicine systems — Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa, Homeopathy. Requires an invitation letter from a recognized, accredited AYUSH facility.
OCI
Overseas Citizen of India — a long-term status for people of Indian origin. OCI cardholders need no visa for India, which makes them the one medical-travel lane with zero visa friction.
FRRO
Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office — the immigration authority that handles visa extensions (including medical-visa extensions with hospital documentation) and other in-country foreigner matters.
TPA
Third-Party Administrator — an insurance-sector intermediary that processes hospital billing for insurers. Matters to international patients with coverage: a hospital’s TPA desk is the interface for cashless or reimbursement claims.
Itemized quote
A quotation naming each line: procedure, implants/devices by brand, room rate, estimated stay, investigations, and the conditions that would change the plan. The single most protective document in medical travel — see our quote red-flags guide.
Green corridor
A traffic corridor cleared by police to move an organ (or a patient) between hospitals in minutes — a sign of a functioning transplant ecosystem in a city, and occasionally in the news when one saves a specific patient.
BMT
Bone-marrow transplant. Alongside kidney and liver programmes, one of the transplant categories to ask about by name when judging a hospital’s depth — volumes matter more than brochure mentions.
DICOM
The standard file format for medical imaging (CT/MRI scans). A proper second opinion reviews the imaging itself, not only the radiology report — which is why records requests ask for the DICOM files or discs.
Single-use secure link
An upload or access link that works once, expires, encrypts the file, and logs who opened it — the safe way for medical records to travel. What a facilitator should offer instead of an email inbox.
Commission model
A facilitator payment structure in which hospitals pay a percentage of the treatment value after admission. Creates an incentive that runs against the cheaper, conservative answer — the structural reason we are patient-paid instead.
Patient-paid model
A facilitator funded entirely by published patient fees — no hospital commissions, referral fees or listing money. Aligns the advisor with the patient by structure rather than promise.
We take no commissions from hospitals. Our fees are paid by you, published upfront, and itemized separately from your hospital bill.
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