Knee and hip replacement in India for American patients

What your imaging can settle before you spend anything

Most of an orthopaedic decision travels as files. A weight-bearing X-ray series of the joint, an MRI where soft tissue or the spine is involved, the operative note from any earlier surgery on that joint, and a plain account of what you can and cannot do on an ordinary day are usually enough for a surgeon to say whether replacement is the reasonable next step, whether resurfacing or a different approach is worth discussing for your anatomy, and what would change the answer. A $50 video consultation, or a $150 written opinion if you want it on paper to take back to your own surgeon, answers that from your living room. Where the reviewing surgeon's view is that the plan your American surgeon has already proposed is the right one, that is what the document will say, and there is nothing further to buy from us. Start collecting the files early. US providers must give you copies of your records on request, and imaging discs are almost always the slowest item to arrive.

Where the money hides in a joint replacement quote

In the implant, the length of stay, and everything a single-line total quietly swallows. A knee or hip quote that arrives as one number tells you nothing about which implant is proposed and who makes it, whether the price assumes a straightforward primary case or covers a revision, how many ward days and how many physiotherapy sessions are included, or what changes if a second joint is done in the same admission. Implant selection is a clinical decision made with your surgeon. You are entitled to know exactly which one is proposed and what it costs, which is why the quotes we bring back are broken out by the hospital, the implant carrying a named, priced line of its own. Exclusions are stated as plainly as inclusions: complications, ward days beyond the package, blood products, an extended stay. Payment goes from you to the hospital on the hospital's own invoice, at the rates fixed in writing before you fly, and our fee arrives separately on an invoice of its own.

Rehabilitation is what decides your dates

A joint replacement is not finished when you leave the operating theatre, and the physiotherapy that follows is what the whole trip has to be built around. Before you commit to anything, we ask the operating team what your case needs in hospital and what it needs afterwards, and Tripcuro arranges accommodation near the hospital for the period the team describes rather than for a guessed number of nights. The return leg is not booked until your surgeon says you are fit for a fourteen-to-seventeen-hour flight; that judgement is theirs, not ours, which is why no recovery duration appears anywhere on this page. One thing worth weighing: a patient recovering in India often has family and household help around them for those weeks in a way that would be hard to arrange at home, and for older patients that is sometimes the deciding factor rather than the price.

If you hold an OCI card, the calendar opens up

OCI cardholders need no medical visa to take treatment in India, for any length of stay. That matters more in orthopaedics than in most specialties, because a recovery that runs longer than expected does not turn into a paperwork problem. Rules can change, so check where the official Indian government pages stand before you travel; it is on the checklist we give you. Without an OCI card the route is the e-Medical visa, applied for online, with linked attendant visas covering up to two companions, worth using when someone has to carry the bags and get you to physiotherapy. Terms there move as well, so read them on the portal at the point you apply. The invitation letter an application needs can only be issued by the hospital that has accepted you. Our part is dealing with that hospital's international desk to obtain it and putting the rest of the file in order. The decision, and the timing of it, rest with the Indian authorities, and nobody here will suggest otherwise. An elective operation is also the one thing on this page that can be timed to a trip to India you were already making.

What to prepare

• Weight-bearing X-rays of the affected joint and any MRI, as image files or a disc rather than only the radiologist's typed report
• The operative note and implant details from any earlier surgery on that joint or your spine, which US providers must release to you on request
• A written self-pay price from your US hospital for the same operation, with the implant broken out, so the two quotes can be read side by side
• An honest description of an ordinary day (stairs, distance walked, sleep, what you have stopped doing), which tells a surgeon more than the films alone
• Everything you take by mouth or injection with its dose (blood-pressure and diabetes medicines, anticoagulants, anti-inflammatories, supplements), plus any allergy or past reaction to an anaesthetic
• Who will be with you during rehabilitation in India, and who will supervise physiotherapy once you are back in the US
• Your passport, and your OCI card if you hold one, checked for validity well before any dates are discussed