- Model 1: a visible coordination fee you pay. Honest, easy to evaluate, uncommon.
- Model 2: the clinic pays the facilitator a referral fee out of its own margin. Your price is the surgeon’s direct price. This is how Andy works.
- Model 3: an all-inclusive package with no breakdown, where the facilitator’s cut is inside the surgical lines. This is where most of the $1,000 to $3,000 overpayments live.
- The exposing question: Is the surgeon’s fee on this quote the fee the surgeon would charge me if I walked in alone?
A facilitator, coordinator, agency, concierge, patient advocate: the labels vary and so does the quality, but every one of them is a business, and every business is paid. The problem is not the payment. Coordinating a surgery abroad is a real job, and a good coordinator saves you money and risk. The problem is when you cannot see the payment, because then you cannot tell whether the $8,200 quote is a $7,000 surgery plus $1,200 of coordination or a $6,000 surgery plus $2,200 of somebody’s margin. There are three models. Here is how to spot each.
Model 1: the visible fee
The coordinator charges you directly, as a line on the quote or a separate invoice, and the surgical lines are the clinic’s own prices. Typical fees run $300 to $1,500 depending on how much is included: airport pickup, translation, recovery house booking, follow-up coordination. This is the easiest model to evaluate because you can price the service against doing it yourself. It is also the least common, because a visible fee is a visible reason to shop around.
Model 2: clinic-paid referral
The clinic pays the coordinator a referral fee out of its own margin, typically a percentage of the surgeon’s fee, and the patient pays the surgeon’s direct price. The clinic does this because the coordinator brings it vetted patients cheaper than buying leads does (the aggregator article explains that cost). The honest version of this model states it plainly. Andy works this way: the clinic pays him, your price is the price the surgeon quotes to anyone, and every name on the quote is verifiable in ReTHUS. The test of an honest Model 2 is whether the coordinator will say so unprompted and whether the quote is itemized.
Model 3: the all-inclusive package
One number, no breakdown, often with a glossy PDF: surgery, recovery house, transport, massages, a welcome basket. The facilitator’s margin is distributed inside the lines you cannot see. Some of these packages are fair. Many are not, and there is no way to tell from the outside, which is the point. The three tells are a refusal to itemize, a surgeon fee that is not stated separately, and a package price that sits at or above the top of the published range for a routine case.
Same tummy tuck, three coordination models
Illustrative: a mid-career surgeon, ambulatory clinic, routine full abdominoplasty with a $5,000 to $5,500 direct price. Model 3 packages typically add $1,000 to $3,000 over the direct price for services worth $300 to $900 at retail. Bars show the patient’s cost; no US comparison in this chart.
Read the chart from the bottom up. Model 3 is not always the most expensive, but it is the only one where you cannot find out.
The exposing question
How to find it line by line
Add the retail values of the non-surgical items to the surgeon’s direct price and compare to the package total. The difference is what coordination cost you. If it is $300 to $900, you paid for a service. If it is $2,000, you paid for someone’s marketing.
What good coordination is worth
Something. A coordinator who has walked into the clinic, knows which recovery houses have a nurse on site, can get the surgeon on a video call before you book, and answers WhatsApp at 2 a.m. when your drain looks wrong is worth a fee. The question is only whether the fee is visible. Every quote from this site is Model 2, the surgeon’s direct price with the coordination paid by the clinic, and it is itemized so you can check it against the published ranges. Procedure-level detail is on Colombia Cosmetic Surgery; the network hub is Colombia Medical. The estimator gives you the retail value of the non-surgical items so you can run the check on anyone’s package.
Want a real quote for this?
Message Andy with your photos, history, and dates. You get a named surgeon, a named facility, and an itemized USD price you can verify. Typical ranges here are ranges until a surgeon prices your case.
Questions people ask
How do medical tourism facilitators get paid?
Three ways: a visible coordination fee you pay directly, a referral fee the clinic pays out of its margin, or a hidden cut inside an all-inclusive package price. The first two are transparent; the third is where overpayment lives.
What is a fair facilitator fee for surgery in Colombia?
For a visible fee covering airport pickup, translation, recovery house booking, and follow-up coordination, $300 to $1,500 is typical. Clinic-paid referral arrangements cost the patient nothing extra if the surgeon’s direct price is quoted.
How do I know if my surgery package is marked up?
Ask for the surgeon’s fee stated separately, then price the non-surgical items at retail: recovery house $90 to $180 per night, transport and translation $150 to $400, massages $20 to $50 per session. If the package exceeds that sum by more than $900, the rest is markup.
What is the surgeon’s direct price?
The fee the surgeon quotes to a patient who contacts the clinic with no intermediary. An honest coordinator quotes that price and is paid by the clinic or by a separate visible fee, never by inflating it.
Is it cheaper to contact a Colombian surgeon directly?
Sometimes, if you can vet the surgeon, facility, and anesthesiologist yourself and handle logistics in Spanish. A clinic-paid coordinator gets you the same direct price with the vetting done, so the honest version costs nothing extra.
How is Andy paid?
By the clinic, as a referral fee out of its margin. The patient pays the surgeon’s direct price, quoted itemized in USD and COP, and every surgeon and anesthesiologist named on the quote can be verified in ReTHUS.
Have a real quote in front of you?
Stop translating it in your head. Put the document against the same cost, recovery, payment and travel categories, then take the unanswered questions back to the provider.
Break down my quote