Why Georgia is cheaper, and what that does not mean
Georgian hospital pricing is lower for structural reasons, not because the medicine is a lesser version of the same thing. Salaries, facility costs, malpractice insurance and drug procurement are all cheaper than in Western Europe or the Gulf, and Georgian clinics compete for regional patients on price in a way that Swiss or Emirati hospitals never have to.
What it does not mean is that every Georgian clinic is equivalent. Within Tbilisi you will find hospitals with international accreditation and surgeons who trained in Germany and Israel, and you will also find clinics whose only distinguishing feature is the price. The difference between those two is the entire risk in choosing Georgia, and it does not show up in the quote.
What a hospital quote actually includes
A Georgian hospital quote is usually built around the procedure itself. Typically included: the surgeon's fee, the anaesthetist, theatre time, standard consumables and a defined number of inpatient nights. Typically excluded, and this is where budgets break:
- Pre-operative diagnostics. Imaging, bloods and cardiac clearance are often billed separately, and sometimes only once you arrive.
- Implants and devices. Joints, meshes, lenses and stents are usually quoted as a separate line and vary enormously by manufacturer.
- Extended stay. The quote assumes an uncomplicated recovery. Additional nights are billed per night.
- Complication management. Re-operation, ICU time and extended antibiotics are not in the headline figure.
Before you commit, ask for the quote to be itemised and ask explicitly what happens to the price if you stay three days longer than planned. A hospital that cannot answer that in writing is telling you something.
The costs outside the hospital
Flights, accommodation for you and anyone travelling with you, local transport, interpretation and the recovery period after discharge are real costs and they scale with the length of stay. For a two-week surgical trip they routinely add up to a meaningful fraction of the medical bill, and they are the part patients forget to budget when they compare a Georgian quote to a quote at home.
There is also the cost of getting it wrong. A procedure that has to be revised at home, in a system that did not perform the original operation and has no records from it, is more expensive than the saving that motivated the trip.
How to compare a Georgian quote with one at home
Compare like for like, which almost nobody does. Put the two quotes side by side on four axes: what is included, who performs the procedure and how many of them they do a year, what happens if there is a complication, and what the follow-up looks like in the six weeks after discharge.
If the Georgian option is cheaper on all four, it is genuinely cheaper. If it is cheaper only on the headline number, you are comparing a price to a plan.
Where Delegata fits
Delegata is paid by the client, not by hospitals, so there is no referral commission shaping which clinic appears in your shortlist. A physician reviews your records before any destination is proposed, quotes come back itemised and in writing, and if Georgia is the wrong answer for your case we say so rather than routing you there anyway.
A 30-minute consultation starts at AED 300 and is credited toward the arrangement fee if you proceed. See what we arrange in Georgia or talk to us first.