Hotels and medical tourism: agreements with clinics and facilitators

In Türkiye, patients and companions usually reach a hotel through the clinic's international patient office, a licensed intermediary (aracı kuruluş) or a direct booking. The regulation published on 26 April 2025 requires health facilities and intermediaries to hold an authorisation certificate, with a transition period for existing operators; the hotel's job is to check it, name the payer and keep clinical detail out of its files.

A clinic two streets away asks for ten rooms next month, below your corporate rate, with free date changes until the day before arrival and payment at the end of the following month. Before you answer, three things need checking: who the clinic is allowed to work with, who actually pays, and what your reservation file will say about the guest. This article works through each one, so you can sign a medical tourism hotel partnership with a clear head, price it correctly and keep the clinical side where it belongs.

How do patients and companions reach a hotel near a clinic?#

Through three routes: the clinic's own international patient office, a licensed intermediary, or a direct booking by the patient or a relative. Each route produces a different contract, a different payer and a different set of details the hotel should hold.

The clinic's international patient office usually books a fixed number of nights around a procedure, for the patient and often one companion, and often pays the bill itself. An intermediary bundles treatment, accommodation and airport transfers, so the reservation looks like a small group with pick-up times attached rather than a normal room booking. A direct booking comes from the patient or a family member, often asking for a quiet room, a late arrival or an early departure, and is usually paid by card at the desk.

Companion nights often outnumber patient nights. The patient may sleep in the clinic for part of the stay while the companion keeps the room, so price companion nights as their own line. Demand is also clustered and uneven: a clinic may send nothing for weeks and then ten rooms in a fortnight, which is a holding problem before it is a pricing problem.

Ask which route it is at first contact, because it decides who signs, who is invoiced and what may be written into the reservation. Public tourism statistics count arrivals and spending, not hotel nights sold to patients, so they cannot be used to size this business for your property; for what the numbers do and do not cover, see what health tourism statistics in Türkiye actually count.

Who may act as a facilitator in international health tourism?#

Under the International Health Tourism and Tourist Health Regulation, published in the Resmî Gazete on 26 April 2025 by the Ministry of Health, health facilities and intermediary organisations must hold an international health tourism authorisation certificate: the Ministry of Health issues it for facilities and USHAŞ (Uluslararası Sağlık Hizmetleri A.Ş.) for intermediaries.

Article 4 defines an intermediary as an organisation, run by an authorised legal person, that advises international health tourists and their companions and arranges the health facility, accommodation, transport and transfers. A person who does this informally is outside the definition and outside the certificate. Article 5(1) sets the certificate duty on both sides of the relationship: the facility that treats and the organisation that arranges.

Article 5(4) and 5(5) close two common gaps. Every further office or branch needs its own certificate, and a certificate cannot be transferred, so a copy issued for a head office address does not cover the branch that is emailing you. Article 6(1)(e) says health facilities may not buy intermediary services from persons or organisations without a certificate, which gives a hotel a polite, factual question to ask the clinic about its own partners.

Article 6(2) sets intermediary duties: accommodation, transport and transfers must run through a travel agency authorised under Law No. 1618 unless the intermediary is itself such an agency; there must be call infrastructure in at least two foreign languages around the clock, or a contracted call centre; and staff may not work for more than two intermediaries at the same time. The regulation replaced the earlier regulation of the same name published on 13 July 2017 (No. 30123), and facilities and intermediaries certified before it had six months to comply, so any template contract still quoting 2017 is out of date. The full text is published by the Resmî Gazete (26 April 2025, No. 32882) (opens in a new tab).

This is a duty on the health side; it does not license hotels. Describe it to your partner in general terms and confirm scope, current status and penalties with your own legal adviser.

What should a hotel check before signing with a clinic or facilitator?#

Four things: that the partner may legally act, that the paper names who pays, that the booking pattern is one you can hold, and that the data you receive is the minimum you need.

Start with the certificate: ask for the number, the exact legal name and the address of the branch that is dealing with you, and check that the three match the contract. Then agency status: if the intermediary is not itself a travel agency authorised under Law No. 1618, ask which agency it uses for accommodation and transfers, and expect a name. Confirm that the person signing can bind the legal person, and keep the trade registry record or signature circular with the contract.

Ask about pattern, not promise: how many rooms the partner placed in the last twelve months, how far ahead, how often dates moved and how many bookings cancelled. A partner that cannot answer in writing is telling you something. Send your own one-page fact sheet, covering room types, distance and travel time to the clinic, check-in and check-out rules, transfer arrangements and a plain line on what the hotel does not do; for what belongs on it, see the hotel fact sheet agencies and clinics expect on one page. Start bounded: three months, a capped number of rooms per week, and a review date written into the agreement. Finally, ask your insurer what the policy says about guests recovering from treatment, before the first booking rather than after.

How should the room rate be written for medical stays?#

As a room rate with a date-flexibility rule and a named payer, not as a package price. The treatment is the clinic's product; the room is yours, and the two should never be sold as one number by the hotel.

State the basis: room only or bed and breakfast. Recovery stays often skip breakfast, so a room-only line is easier to defend than a discount on a board type nobody uses. Price companion nights separately from patient nights, because the two lengths differ and the companion may stay after the patient is discharged. Add a length tier: a companion staying ten to fourteen nights should sit on a weekly rate, with peak dates excluded or priced at the normal rate so a long stay never eats a high-demand night.

Write the date rule: for example, dates may move once, free of charge, up to seven days before arrival, after which normal cancellation terms apply, and say who may move them, the clinic or the guest. Write the hold rule: how long a room is held for a tentative case, and who releases it, because a hold with no expiry is a room you have given away. Write the early-departure rule: a patient discharged sooner than planned leaves nights unused, and the agreement must say whether those nights are charged. Quote in the currency you will invoice, and confirm currency and tax treatment with your accountant rather than deciding at the desk. For the wider mechanics, see how corporate rates are agreed with companies.

Who pays the bill, and when?#

Either the clinic pays on account and the hotel invoices the clinic, or the guest pays and claims back from the clinic. Decide which before the first arrival, write it in one line, and never let the desk improvise.

If the clinic pays, the booking runs on a city ledger, the guest signs only for extras, and the invoice goes to the clinic's finance address with an agreed payment term. If the guest pays, the guest settles the room at departure and receives a proper invoice for the clinic, which means the invoice must be issued to the right name with the right details on the first attempt.

Mixed cases are the ones that go wrong: room to the clinic, extras to the guest, transfers to neither. Write the split per charge type, not per booking. Ask a new partner for a deposit or a guarantee covering the first month of bookings, and say in the agreement what the deposit is set against. Send the clinic a monthly statement listing stays, nights and charges, so a disputed line is settled from a document rather than a memory. The invoice currency, the exchange basis if any, and the fiscal document itself are accounting questions, so confirm them with your accountant before the first invoice. For the underlying mechanics, see how a hotel city ledger works when an agency or company is invoiced.

What can the hotel offer during recovery, and what must it refuse?#

The hotel can sell a quiet, accessible room, flexible housekeeping and a short, reliable trip to the clinic. It cannot assess anyone's condition, advise on treatment or imply that the property is suitable for a particular procedure.

The legitimately sellable list is concrete: a room away from lifts and the street, a fridge, step-free access, an accessible bathroom, wheelchair storage, late check-out on discharge day, extra cleaning, laundry, simple dietary requests and a fixed transfer arrangement. Discharge day rarely matches check-out day, so agree a day-room rate in advance instead of negotiating it at the desk with a tired family.

Keep the clinic's round-the-clock number at the front desk, and make sure staff can say in the guest's language that they will call the clinic. Write one escalation page: who calls the clinic, who calls emergency services, who informs the duty manager, and train it once a season rather than assuming it. Language and tone matter more than amenities: a receptionist who says plainly what the hotel can do is worth more than a brochure that promises recovery. Nothing in the hotel's marketing should read as a health claim; if a phrase could be read as one, remove it.

How does a hotel keep health details out of its files?#

Record the room, the dates and the payer, and leave the reason for the stay with the clinic. Health data is special-category personal data under KVKK (the personal data protection law), and a hotel almost never needs it to deliver a room.

The minimum fields are guest name, companion name, dates, room type, payer, transfer time, and a neutral note such as a quiet room request. Not the procedure, not the diagnosis, not the medication. Free text is where the leak happens: reservation notes, housekeeping notes, staff messaging groups and the front desk notebook. Decide in writing where such notes may not be written, and check once a month.

Apply need to know. The front desk needs the transfer time, not the reason; keep the clinic's contact details and correspondence with the sales manager and the duty manager. When the agreement ends, delete the clinic correspondence; the invoice stays as an accounting record, and it should carry no clinical detail in the first place. When sending information back to a partner, arrival and departure times are enough, and if a partner asks for more, ask why in writing before answering. If health detail ever reaches the hotel, how it is handled and whether it may be transferred is a question for your legal adviser, not a front-desk decision. Deliver one page of staff briefing per season, covering what to write, what not to write, and what to say when a guest or clinic offers more detail than the hotel needs.

What to do next#

Before the next clinic call, ask for the certificate number, the legal name and the branch address, and write the payer line into the draft. Everything else in this article follows from those two documents: a partner that can show a certificate and name a payer is a partner you can price for, hold rooms for and invoice without guessing, and a file that holds only the room, the dates and the payer keeps the clinical side where it belongs.