Medical Travel to Taiwan: A Conservative Verification Guide
New Dawn's Taipei screening packages run $299 for Convenient to $3,499 for Advanced. What to verify before self-pay medical travel to Taiwan: clinician, facility, protocol, price scope, records and follow-up.
Quick answer: New Dawn's Taipei screening packages are priced in US dollars and run from $299 for Convenient, a 1.5-hour clinical check-up, through $699 for Essential, which adds five ultrasounds and vascular risk testing, and $1,699 for Premium, which adds a low-dose lung CT and a heart calcium score, to $3,499 for Advanced, which adds a full-body MRI. The price is the easiest part of medical travel to check and the least informative part. Before you pay, verify the clinician, the facility, the written protocol, the records you leave with, and who manages a complication after you fly home.
Prices read from our packages page on 2026-09-08. They are the whole self-pay cost of the visit. A short-stay visitor is not enrolled in Taiwan's National Health Insurance, so nothing here is subsidised.
What does a health screening in Taipei actually cost?
Four tiers of the Holistic Exam line span the range. Each is the same clinic-led check-up at its core — biometrics, physical examination, blood analysis with organ-function and tumor markers, urine analysis, ECG, hearing and eye exams, chest X-ray, body composition — with imaging added as the tier rises. Time at clinic is the booked slot for the visit.
| Package | Price (USD) | Time at clinic | Imaging included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Convenient | $299 | 1.5 hours | Chest X-ray and an abdominal ultrasound. No lung CT, no calcium score, no MRI. Wednesdays and Thursdays only. |
| Essential | $699 | 3.5 hours | Five ultrasounds (thyroid, carotid arteries, heart, upper abdomen, and ovaries and uterus for women), plus vitamin D, cardiovascular and vascular risk tests, and bone mineral density. No lung CT, no calcium score, no MRI. |
| Premium | $1,699 | 5 hours | Five ultrasounds (thyroid, carotid arteries, abdomen, and ovaries and uterus or prostate), a low-dose lung CT and a heart calcium score. No MRI. |
| Advanced | $3,499 | 6 hours | Everything in Premium plus a full-body MRI covering head, neck, abdomen, pelvis and whole spine, with vitamin D and anti-aging tests. Arms and legs are not in the MRI. |
Upper endoscopy and colonoscopy is an add-on at any tier, also Wednesdays and Thursdays only, and it carries a 7-day flight restriction, so it belongs early in a trip. The full list, including single scans and a-la-carte tests, is on the packages page linked above.
What are you actually deciding when you travel for care?
A lower price or a shorter wait can be a real advantage. The decision also includes medical suitability, language, travel risk, the records you take home, complications and follow-up at home. Urgent or unstable conditions should not be delayed for a planned trip.
Why can you not compare destination labels?
“Taiwan,” “Japan,” “Thailand,” “Korea” and “Singapore” each contain facilities with different staff, equipment, accreditation, prices and outcomes. A country name is not a quality claim. Ask the facility for its accreditation certificate and expiry date, and confirm it on the accrediting body's own directory rather than on the facility's marketing page. Magazine rankings and agency summaries are not facility-specific verification.
Does Taiwan's public health system cover a visitor?
No. The National Health Insurance Act requires foreign nationals holding a valid Alien Resident Certificate to enrol in NHI after six months of continuous residence — six months in Taiwan, or with one trip abroad of no more than 30 days deducted from the count. Those on a work permit with an ARC are enrolled by their employer from the day they are employed, and foreign students enrol through their school. A visitor on a short stay meets none of these tests and pays the private price for everything, which is the gap the packages above fill.
Which screenings does Taiwan's government fund, and who qualifies?
The Health Promotion Administration funds five cancer screening programmes, claimed with an NHI card at a contracted institution. Together those five cancers kill more than 20,000 people in Taiwan a year. The eligibility rules are narrow and age-banded, and none of these programmes is a full-body scan.
| Screening | Who qualifies | Interval |
|---|---|---|
| Mammography | Women aged 40 to 74 | Every 2 years |
| Cervical smear | Women aged 25 to 29; women aged 30 and over | Every 3 years; annually from 30 |
| Faecal occult blood (FIT) | Ages 45 to under 75; ages 40 to 44 with a family history | Every 2 years |
| Oral mucosal examination | Betel chewers or smokers aged 30 and over; indigenous betel chewers aged 18 and over | Every 2 years |
| Low-dose CT for lung cancer | Family history: men 45 to 74, women 40 to 74 with a parent, child or sibling diagnosed with lung cancer. Heavy smokers: ages 50 to 74 with 20 pack-years or more, currently smoking or quit within 15 years | Every 2 years |
Two things follow. If you fall inside one of those bands and hold an NHI card, the funded programme is the cheaper route for that single test. If you do not — wrong age, no card, or you want more than one organ looked at in one visit — you are buying a private package, and the questions below are the ones that matter.
Is a full-body scan the right thing to buy?
More tests are not automatically better. The American College of Radiology states that there is not sufficient evidence to justify recommending total body screening for patients with no clinical symptoms, risk factors or family history suggesting underlying disease, and warns that it identifies non-specific findings leading to further testing, procedures and expense without improving health. That is an argument for matching the scan to your risk, not an argument that imaging is useless: Premium exists because a lung CT and a calcium score have defined indications, and Advanced adds the MRI for people who have weighed that trade-off and still want it.
What do you verify before you pay?
- Clinician licence and specialty, and facility accreditation, from the issuing body rather than the clinic's own page.
- The exact procedure or test protocol in writing, and the realistic alternatives.
- Who manages a complication during the trip, and who manages one after you fly home.
- Report and record language, file formats (DICOM for imaging), and how and when they are delivered.
- Current price, currency, taxes, deposit, cancellation and refund terms, and every service charged separately.
- Your home clinician's answer to whether these records will be usable and what follow-up is needed.
- Insurance, travel-insurance and reimbursement rules, confirmed in writing before you travel.
A one-morning workflow, a same-day debrief, an English report, DICOM files, a fixed turnaround or a rapid specialist referral are written provider commitments. Get them in writing from the facility you booked; they are not properties of a country.
How should you compare prices?
Compare like for like. A quoted range is only meaningful with its currency, package scope, facility, exclusions and date attached, and two products at the same price can examine entirely different organs. Label whether a figure is a New Dawn price, a partner quotation or an external market comparison, and record the date you read it. Article 21 of Taiwan's Fair Trade Act prohibits false or misleading representations about matters relevant to a transaction, which is exactly why an unsourced “one-third the price” or “best value” claim should make you ask for the denominator in writing.
Sources
- New Dawn Health — Packages, prices and inclusions (read 2026-09-08)
- National Health Insurance Administration, MOHW — Foreign Nationals who Reside in Taiwan with an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) (accessed 2026-09-08)
- Health Promotion Administration, MOHW — Introduction to cancer screening: breast, cervical, colorectal, oral and lung (accessed 2026-09-08)
- American College of Radiology — ACR Statement on Screening Total Body MRI (accessed 2026-09-08)
- Fair Trade Commission — Fair Trade Act, Article 21 (accessed 2026-09-08)
US / UK terms and the closest Taiwan context
Read this first: These are comparison aids, not claims that coverage, credentials, or care pathways are equivalent. Europe is not one health system; UK examples below refer specifically to NHS England.
Annual Wellness Visit (AWV), annual physical, health checkup
- What it means there
- Medicare describes the AWV as a prevention-planning conversation and explicitly says it is not a routine physical exam.
- Closest Taiwan context
- Taiwan HPA adult preventive services (成人預防保健) include defined history, measurements, examinations, laboratory items, and counselling for eligible age groups. Private self-pay checkups are a separate service whose contents vary.
- Do not treat as equivalent
- AWV, a US routine physical, Taiwan government-funded preventive care, and an executive self-pay package are not interchangeable names or benefit sets.
- What to ask
- Request the exact item list, eligibility rule, physician consultation, follow-up plan, and whether each item is NHI-funded or self-pay.
Screening vs diagnostic work-up
- What it means there
- Screening generally concerns people without recognized signs or symptoms. A symptom, abnormal examination, or positive screen can require a separate diagnostic assessment.
- Closest Taiwan context
- Taiwan uses 篩檢 for defined screening programs and 診斷／進一步檢查 for evaluation of symptoms or abnormal findings.
- Do not treat as equivalent
- Calling a scan a “screening” test does not establish that it is recommended for every asymptomatic person, covered by insurance, or sufficient to diagnose or exclude disease.
- What to ask
- Tell the clinic about symptoms and risk factors, then ask whether the proposed test is screening or diagnostic and what follow-up is planned for normal, unclear, and abnormal results.