Twenty-five questions to ask before paying a deposit

The price looks reasonable, the coordinator replies within minutes, and the photographs look convincing. None of that tells you what you are actually paying for. Before any deposit changes hands, work through these twenty-five questions — not because any single answer is disqualifying on its own, but because a pattern of weak answers is the clearest signal you will get before you commit money and book travel.

Why groups, not a checklist

These twenty-five questions are grouped deliberately, because they test different things. The facility questions test whether you are dealing with a real, accountable organisation. The clinician questions test whether the person actually treating you is who and what you think they are. The treatment and risk questions test whether the plan itself has been properly thought through for you specifically, rather than adapted from a template. The money and aftercare questions test what happens after the sale is made, which is where most disputes actually originate. Read the answers within their group before comparing across groups — a weak answer on money does not cancel out a strong answer on the clinician, and both are worth knowing separately.

Facility

1. What is the exact legal name of the facility treating me? A brand name is marketing; the legal entity is what is actually authorised, insured and accountable if something goes wrong. Hesitation over something this basic is itself informative.
2. Where does the procedure physically take place? Not every clinic that markets a treatment performs it on its own premises. Some subcontract to a hospital or a separate facility, and you are entitled to know exactly where you will be treated before you agree to anything.
3. Are you authorised for international health tourism? Under Turkish regulation, a facility treating patients travelling from abroad is meant to hold a Ministry of Health International Health Tourism Authorisation Certificate. You can check this yourself on the register rather than relying only on the answer you are given.
4. What is the authorisation reference? A genuine authorisation has a specific, checkable reference. An answer that avoids giving you anything you can look up is a weaker answer than one that hands you a number.
5. Am I dealing with the healthcare provider directly, or with an intermediary? Facilities and intermediary organisations can each hold their own separate authorisation in Turkey, and knowing which one you are actually speaking to changes who is responsible for what along the way.

Clinician

1. Who exactly performs my treatment? Ask for a name, not a description of a team. "One of our specialists" is not an answer to this question.
2. What is their recognised specialty? The qualification should match the procedure. A general practitioner in a field and a specialist within it are not interchangeable for complex cases, and that logic holds across every specialty.
3. Can I speak to them, even briefly, before travelling? A clinician willing to answer a direct clinical question before you book is a different proposition from one you are only introduced to on the day of treatment.
4. How frequently do they perform this specific procedure? General experience in a field and specific experience with your exact procedure are not the same thing, and the difference matters more for less common treatments.
5. Who takes responsibility for my treatment if they are unavailable? Establish this before you travel. Finding out the answer is "someone else" after you have already arrived leaves you very little room to react.

Treatment

1. What is my proposed diagnosis? You should be able to state it back in plain terms, not just repeat the name of a treatment.
2. What exactly is proposed, at procedure level? "Dental work" or "a facelift" is not a plan. The specific technique, the number of stages, and the materials involved are.
3. Why is this specifically recommended for me? A generic answer that could apply to almost any patient, regardless of their anatomy or history, is a weak one.
4. What are the alternatives, and why weren't they chosen? Every treatment plan involves trade-offs against other options. A clinician who cannot describe them may not have properly weighed them.
5. What could change the plan once I arrive and am examined in person? Some change between a remote plan and an in-person examination is normal. The honest answer names what specifically might shift and why — not simply "nothing."

Risks

1. What are the important risks and complications of this specific procedure? "None" is not a reassuring answer. It is itself the finding, because no procedure is entirely risk-free.
2. Is there any reason I might not be suitable for this treatment? A provider willing to say no, or to decline treating you altogether, is giving you a genuinely useful signal about how they actually make decisions.
3. What happens to my deposit and my travel arrangements if you decide not to operate after examining me? This should have an answer in writing before you book flights, not a verbal reassurance offered once you have already arrived.

Money

1. What is included in the price? Ask for this itemised rather than summarised in a single figure.
2. What is excluded? Ask specifically about anaesthesia, medication, additional scans, a second stage of treatment if one is likely, and transport.
3. What could increase the price after I arrive? A finding made at the in-person assessment is a legitimate reason costs can change. An unexplained increase on the day of treatment is not.
4. What are the deposit, cancellation and refund terms, in writing? A verbal assurance is not a term. Get the actual document before you pay anything at all.

Aftercare

1. How long must I stay in the country after treatment? This affects flights, accommodation and time off work, and needs to be settled before you book any of them.
2. Who follows up with me once I am home, and how? Get a name, a channel, and a timeframe. See who is actually responsible for aftercare for the fuller set of questions to work through here.
3. What happens, specifically, if I develop a complication after I leave? Push past general reassurance to the actual mechanics: who assesses you, where, which costs are covered, and whether you would need to return to Turkey.

How to use the answers

Do not evaluate these questions one at a time in isolation. A single hesitant answer might mean nothing more than a coordinator who did not know and needed to check with a clinician; a pattern of hesitant, vague or evasive answers across several different groups — facility, clinician, money, aftercare — is a much stronger signal than any one answer on its own. Keep a written note of what you were told at each stage, because the value of these questions is not only in asking them once, but in being able to check later whether the answers you eventually get in person still match what you were told before you booked.

The question that is not on the list

Once you have answers to all twenty-five, ask one more: do they make sense together? A facility can be properly authorised and still propose a treatment plan you do not fully understand. A surgeon can be genuinely well qualified while the aftercare arrangement on offer is unworkable for someone who lives in another country. A low price can be entirely genuine and still exclude parts of treatment you had assumed were included. No single credential, certificate or reassurance replaces looking at the whole picture together, which is the actual point of asking all twenty-five questions rather than picking the two or three that feel most urgent at the time.

Getting it in writing

A verbal answer to any of these questions is worth having, but it is not a substitute for the same answer in writing. Ask for the key points — the legal name of the facility, the clinician's name and specialty, what is included and excluded in the price, the cancellation and refund terms, and the aftercare arrangement — to be confirmed in an email or a document you can keep, rather than relying on your own notes from a phone call or a chat conversation that could later be edited or lost. This is not about distrust of any particular clinic; it is about having something to refer back to if what you are told later changes.

What to do next

Write the answers down as you get them, ideally in the same document, and compare them against what your written proposal actually says before sending any deposit. If you want to check a facility's authorisation independently rather than relying only on what you were told, you can verify a Turkish clinic's licence yourself or search the register directly at healthturkey.co/find.