Medical travel

We arrange the travel. Doctors do the medicine.

Bogotá and Medellín hold most of Colombia’s accredited hospitals. We coordinate the parts that are hard from abroad — records, scheduling, transport, interpreting, a companion, and a flight home that nobody books until your surgeon says you can fly.

Start an enquiry When we say no

We are a travel company. We are not a clinic.

Corazón Colombia arranges travel: flights, ground transport, accommodation, interpreting, companion arrangements and in-country coordination. We are not a hospital, clinic, medical practice or healthcare provider. We do not provide medical care, medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, and no member of our staff is authorised to answer a clinical question.

All clinical care is provided by independent institutions and physicians licensed in Colombia, with whom you contract directly and whom you pay directly. We do not choose your treatment, we do not take part in clinical decisions, and we never collect payment for clinical services.

What we actually sell

Logistics. All of it itemised.

Every line below is ours and is priced as ours. We do not quote clinical fees, and we do not publish comparisons with prices in other countries — those are the institution's to give you after it has assessed you.

Trip coordination

A named coordinator builds your itinerary around the dates the treating institution gives us, and stays with the file from enquiry to the flight home.

One named person, reachable 07:00–21:00 COT
Scheduling built around the institution, not the airline
Records consolidated and delivered — envelopes, not contents
The discharge pack held for your return leg

Boundary. We can tell you our response times, languages and hours. We cannot and do not claim any effect on your clinical outcome, safety, recovery or complication rate.

Airport and clinic transport

Private vehicle with a named operator between fixed points — airport, accommodation, institution — for every movement of the trip.

Met inside arrivals at BOG or MDE
Every clinic appointment, both directions
Vetted drivers, in contact with our office
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles on request

Boundary. We describe the vehicle, the driver vetting and the wait time. We do not describe any vehicle as medically equipped or ambulance-standard — we do not operate medical transport.

Accommodation booking

Hotels and apartments we have inspected ourselves, chosen for step-free access, lift availability and distance in kilometres from the institution.

Only properties we have visited and photographed
Step-free access and lift availability stated as fact
Distance to the institution in kilometres
Ground-floor rooms where they exist

Boundary. We describe physical facts only. We do not call anything a recovery suite, a healing environment or a medical hotel — none of those are things a hotel room can be.

Contingency nights and a changeable return

Three to five refundable nights held in reserve, and a return leg booked only in a changeable fare class, so that a surgeon extending your stay costs you nothing to accommodate.

Pre-paid, refundable contingency nights
Changeable return fare — fixed-date returns are refused
Rebooking handled by us, not by you from a hospital bed
Companion travel rebooked at the same time

Boundary. Mandatory on any surgical itinerary. This is a booking condition, not an upsell, and we will not waive it.

Medical interpreting

A certified interpreter, Spanish to English, present for consultations and pre-operative discussions.

Certified medical interpreters, not bilingual staff
Present for consent conversations specifically
Booked by the hour or by appointment
French available with notice

Boundary. An interpreter renders exactly what is said. Ours are contractually prohibited from summarising, advising, reassuring or answering a clinical question on a physician’s behalf.

Companion arrangements

Travel, accommodation and hospital access logistics for one accompanying adult, arranged alongside yours.

Flights and accommodation booked together
Hospital access and visiting arrangements
Rebooked automatically if your stay extends
Someone who is not a patient, in the room

Boundary. Mandatory for any procedure involving general anaesthetic or an overnight stay. If you will not travel with an adult companion, we decline the booking.

What we coordinate travel around

Established clinical care, at licensed institutions.

We name the department. We say nothing about what a procedure does, who it suits or what it achieves — that is a conversation with a physician who has examined you, and it does not belong on a travel website.

Dentistry

Colombia’s strongest and longest-established international line. Multi-visit plans are issued by the treating dentist and the trip is built around their schedule.

Trip length: 5–12 days, usually split across visits per the dentist’s plan

Ophthalmology

Travel around consultations and procedures scheduled by the institution.

Trip length: 3–7 days

Orthopaedics

Travel around a surgical plan issued by the treating surgeon. Subject to every surgical gate below.

Trip length: Set by the surgeon, never by us

Cardiology

Travel around consultations, diagnostics or intervention at a cardiac institution.

Trip length: Set by the institution

Plastic and reconstructive surgery

Travel around a plan issued by a registered surgeon at a licensed facility. Gated, and the gates are strict for reasons set out on this page.

Trip length: Minimum stay is the surgeon’s, not ours

Oncology second opinion

Travel around a consultation with an oncology service. A second opinion, not a treatment offer.

Trip length: 2–5 days

Diagnostic imaging and laboratory

Scheduling and travel around scans and tests a physician has ordered.

Trip length: 2–4 days, subject to the institution’s schedule

Executive health assessment

Travel around a multi-test programme that the institution itself publishes as a defined package.

Trip length: 2–4 days

We do not recommend treatments, and we cannot tell you whether something is right for you.

Whether any procedure is appropriate for you is a decision for a licensed physician after a personal assessment. Take independent advice from your own doctor before you commit to anything invasive — and do it before you book travel, not after.

Considering something you do not see listed? Ask us — privately.

The departments above are not the whole of Colombian licensed medicine. If you are considering care in a category we have not listed — including dental work beyond the obvious, aesthetic medicine, or complementary care delivered inside the licensed sector — ask us directly and we will give you one of two honest answers: either we can coordinate travel around a licensed, REPS-verified institution that offers it, or it falls outside our standards and we will tell you so and decline. What we will never do is describe, recommend or advertise a treatment here. There are categories we decline every time; they are explained at when we decline.

Verification

Check us, and check them. Both registries are public and free.

The documented harm in Colombian medical travel is concentrated in unlicensed operators, not in accredited hospitals. Two public registries let you tell the difference in about four minutes, and you should use them whoever you book through — including us.

REPS — is the facility licensed?

Every health provider in Colombia must be registered in REPS with at least one licensed service at the site where care is delivered. Registration is the legal minimum to open the door — it is not a quality mark. A member of the public can log in with invitado as both username and password.

Open the public lookup

ReTHUS — is the physician registered?

Every health professional must be registered in ReTHUS, searchable by ID number or name. A ReTHUS entry proves a person is registered to practise and nothing more — it is not evidence that any particular procedure is approved, and the specialty shown depends on what was reported.

Open the public lookup

ICONTEC — is the institution accredited?

Accreditation is voluntary and entirely separate from licensing. Roughly 60 institutions nationwide appear on the official accredited list, out of thousands of licensed providers. If an institution is not on that list, it is not accredited in Colombia.

Open the public lookup

We will give you the institution’s REPS entry, the treating physician’s ReTHUS entry, and any accreditation certificate we hold, in writing, before you pay for anything.

On Colombia’s official accredited list

Public registry fact, from the July 2026 edition of the official accredited-IPS listing. This is not a partnership claim, not an endorsement and not a recommendation — it is what the register says, so that you can check it yourself.

Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe
Medellín
Acreditado con Excelencia
2022-02-01
Cycle V
Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá
Bogotá
2023-12-04
Cycle V
Hospital Universitario San Ignacio
Bogotá
Acreditado
2024-08-02
Cycle III
Clínica del Country
Bogotá
2025-08-11
Fundación Cardioinfantil — La Cardio
Bogotá
on the list
Clínica Reina Sofía — Colsanitas
Bogotá
on the list
Hospital San Vicente Fundación
Medellín
2022-07-28
Cycle IV
Clínica Universitaria Bolivariana
Medellín
2022-07-18
Cycle II
Clínica El Rosario — El Tesoro campus only
Medellín
2023-10-18
Cycle I

Rankings are not accreditations. A ranking is a published comparison by a magazine or research firm; an accreditation is an assessment against a defined standard, granted for a fixed period. Neither is a guarantee about your individual surgeon or your individual procedure — and the two major Latin American hospital rankings do not agree on which Colombian hospital ranks first.

Booking conditions

Eight rules we will not waive.

These are enforced in the booking flow, not buried in a footer. Several of them will cost us bookings, and we would rather lose those bookings.

One procedure per trip

No combinations, no "while I’m there". Combining procedures in a single trip is the strongest predictor of the catastrophic complication in this market, and we refuse it even when you insist.

Written acceptance before any travel is booked

The treating physician must have accepted you in writing, with a confirmed date. A quotation, an enquiry or a phone call is not acceptance and we will not book on one.

Facility and physician verified in the public registries

The facility must appear in REPS with the specific service licensed, and the physician in ReTHUS. We screenshot and date both, and we give them to you before you pay anyone anything.

An adult companion, for anaesthetic or an overnight stay

Mandatory. Someone in the room who is not a patient. If you will not travel with one, we decline.

Insurance covering complications abroad and repatriation

Evidenced before a flight is ticketed. Most home policies exclude both — check yours rather than assuming.

The minimum stay is the surgeon’s

They set it in writing and the itinerary adapts to it. We do not negotiate it and neither should you.

No return flight until written fitness-to-fly clearance

The return is booked in a changeable fare only, and it is not ticketed until the operating surgeon says in writing that you can fly.

No leisure stacking on a surgical trip

No San Andrés leg, no diving, no high-altitude excursion in the same trip as a procedure. Come back for that another time — we would like you to.

The full list of when we decline

Before you book

Risks you should understand.

A travel site that only tells you good things is an advert. These are the things that actually go wrong.

Any surgery carries risk.

Bleeding, infection, anaesthetic complications, blood clots and death. Those risks exist everywhere. Travelling adds distance between you and the surgeon who operated on you.

Verify who is treating you.

The documented harm in Colombia is concentrated in unlicensed operators. Colombian press, citing the Secretaría de Salud de Antioquia, has reported 17 deaths across 2024–2025 from aesthetic surgery at unlicensed premises in Antioquia, with more than 80% of those deaths in Medellín and most involving liposuction. Use the REPS and ReTHUS links above before you pay anyone anything — whoever you book through.

Complications can appear after you fly home.

A 2026 report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on adverse outcomes of travel-related cosmetic procedures among US residents between 2014 and 2024 recorded 21 consultations covering approximately 145 patients, most commonly after liposuction and abdominoplasty, including 12 involving suspected or confirmed nontuberculous mycobacterial infection, and four deaths.

Care abroad is not care at home.

Colombian licensing and accreditation are granted under Colombian law. They carry no recognition from the regulator in your own country. Your home health insurance is unlikely to cover elective treatment abroad, and unlikely to cover complications after you return. If something goes wrong once you are home, the treating institution is in another country under another legal system, and the cost will normally fall to you.

If you have a complication after a procedure abroad, tell a doctor at home immediately.

Tell them where you were treated and exactly what was done. US residents can also report to the CDC at medicaltourism@cdc.gov.

Where, and where not

Bogotá and Medellín. Not the island.

We do not arrange medical travel to San Andrés or Providencia.

Zero health providers in the Departamento de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina appear on Colombia’s official accredited-IPS list. The islands have basic services only, and anything serious means an air ambulance roughly two hours to the mainland. We will happily take you there on holiday. We will not arrange treatment there, and we will not put an island leg on a surgical itinerary.

Altitude is a real planning constraint.

Bogotá sits at approximately 2,640 m and Medellín at approximately 1,495 m. That is geography, not medical advice — but it is a question to put to your treating physician when they set your recovery timetable, and it is one reason we build acclimatisation nights into Bogotá itineraries as a matter of course.

Diving and surgery do not mix, and neither does diving and flying.

No surgical itinerary we build contains a diving leg. Separately, and for everyone: leave at least 18 hours between your last dive and any flight. If you want the reef and you want a procedure, do them on two different trips — we will help you plan both.

What we quote, and what we don’t.

We quote our own prices: flights, transfers, nights, interpreting hours, our coordination fee, the companion supplement and the contingency-night reserve. Every line is itemised and every line is ours.

We do not quote clinical fees and we do not publish comparisons with prices in other countries. Clinical fees are quoted case by case by the treating institution after it has assessed you, and they typically exclude complications, revision surgery, extended stay and repatriation. You pay the institution directly. We never handle clinical money.

Next step

Tell us what has already been arranged.

The useful conversation starts once a physician has accepted you and given you a date. If you are earlier than that, tell us anyway and we will explain what to sort out first — including the parts where you do not need us at all.

Start an enquiry Read the medical disclaimer

Please do not send medical records, scans or diagnostic reports through the website form. We will give you a secure channel once we are in contact.