You are not buying one document. You are buying three deliverables that arrive on three different timelines, and almost no screening provider anywhere prints that on its price page. This article is the specification to demand before you pay, written so it works in Seoul or Bangkok as well as in Taipei.
The failure mode is specific. A screening abroad finds something real, and then months disappear because the images crossed the ocean as pictures instead of as data, and no clinician at home was ever named to receive them.
What are you actually buying?
Three things, and confusing them is what costs people time.
| Deliverable | What it is | When it typically arrives |
|---|---|---|
| Preliminary discussion | A conversation on the day, before the final report exists | Same day |
| Final written report | The definitive documentation of the examination | Days to weeks |
| Image data | The full study, not selected pictures | On request, sometimes only on request |
The American College of Radiology defines the second of these plainly. Its practice parameter on communication of diagnostic imaging findings states that the final report is the definitive documentation of the results of an imaging examination or procedure.
Everything said to you before that document exists is something else.
What is a laboratory report required to contain?
In the United States, seven things, and the list is the best benchmark a foreign buyer has.
Under 42 CFR 493.1291, a test report must contain the following.
- Either the patient's name and identification number, or a unique patient identifier.
- The name and address of the laboratory location where the test was performed.
- The test report date.
- The test performed.
- Specimen source, when appropriate.
- The test result and, if applicable, the units of measurement or interpretation.
- Any information regarding the condition and disposition of specimens that do not meet the laboratory's criteria for acceptability.
The same section adds that reference intervals or normal values must be available to the authorized person who ordered the tests and to relevant users of the results.
No foreign laboratory is bound by that regulation. It still tells you exactly what to ask for, because a result without units, a method and the laboratory's own reference interval cannot be compared to anything.
What should imaging travel as?
As DICOM, which is the image data itself rather than a picture of it.
DICOM is published by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, is updated and republished several times a year, and currently runs to 22 parts covering data structures, encoding, message exchange, media storage and web services.
A printed image or a PDF of selected slices is a record of what one reader chose to show you. A DICOM set is the study, at the resolution the scanner produced, with the acquisition parameters attached.
The ACR, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine set the rules for the media in their technical standard for the electronic practice of medical imaging.
| What you might be handed | What the technical standard says |
|---|---|
| Disc with proprietary formatted images | Should not be used |
| Disc with an embedded viewer | Viewer should display standard DICOM PDI images, not depend on a proprietary format |
| Compressed images | Only algorithms defined by the DICOM standard, such as JPEG, JPEG-LS, JPEG-2000 or MPEG |
| Network sharing only | Standard physical media are still required if a patient requests them |
That last row is the one to quote back. A portal login is not a substitute for media you can hand to someone.
The practical consequences at the receiving end are covered in our guide to what actually travels home. This article is the part you settle before you pay.
What does a final imaging report have to say?
The ACR practice parameter sets out a suggested format, and it is short enough to check a foreign report against line by line.
| Report element | What the ACR parameter asks for |
|---|---|
| Demographics | Facility, patient, examination name, date of examination |
| Procedures and materials | Studies performed, contrast media, medications, devices, reactions |
| Findings | Appropriate anatomic, pathologic and radiologic terminology |
| Potential limitations | Factors that may compromise sensitivity and specificity |
| Comparison studies | Comparison with relevant examinations and reports when available |
| Impression | A specific diagnosis when possible, a differential when appropriate |
Two of those rows are the ones a screening report most often skips. Potential limitations tells your own doctor what the scan could not see. Impression tells them what the reader concluded rather than only what they observed.
A report with findings and no impression hands the interpretation back to you.
Why is a same-day conversation not a report?
Because the ACR names that category separately and warns about it.
The parameter describes informal communications as a curbside consult, a wet reading or an informal opinion. It states that these circumstances may preclude immediate documentation and may occur in suboptimal viewing conditions without comparison studies and their accompanying reports or adequate patient history.
It then states that informal communications carry inherent risk, and that frequently the referring provider's documentation of the informal consultation may be the only written record of the communication.
A preliminary report is a third thing again. The parameter says it very likely will contain limited or incomplete information and should not be expected to contain all the information subsequently found in the final report.
So a debrief on the day is useful and is not the deliverable. Ask when the final report is signed, not only when you get to talk to someone.
Who is responsible when nobody referred you?
This is the clause that matters most to a screening buyer, and it is the one nobody quotes.
A screening customer is a self-referred patient. The ACR parameter addresses that case directly, noting that performing imaging studies on self-referred patients may establish a doctor-patient relationship that includes responsibility for communicating results directly to the patient and arranging appropriate follow-up.
It then makes a recommendation you can act on. Radiologists serving self-referred patients are asked to request that such patients identify a licensed provider to receive their imaging results and oversee any necessary follow-up care.
Name that provider before you fly. If nobody at home is designated to receive the study, the handoff has no owner on either end.
What does a provider that publishes this look like?
Samsung Medical Center in Seoul is the clearest published example we found, and it is worth copying as a benchmark.
| Question | What Samsung Medical Center publishes |
|---|---|
| Report language | Official report in Korean and English only |
| Other languages | Physician's summary translated on request at registration |
| Translation timing | Emailed within 7 to 10 business days after the Korean and English reports issue |
| Consultation timing | Typically 7 to 14 days after the exam, excluding holidays |
| Delivery | Collected in person, or sent by DHL or email |
Notice that none of those rows is a promise about quality. Each is a fact a buyer can hold the provider to afterward, which is what makes them worth more than a quality claim.
Set that as the floor. Any provider in any country can answer those five questions in writing before you pay, and a provider that will not is telling you something.
What should you ask before you pay?
Ten questions, in the order that matters.
- What language is the official report issued in, and is that the report or a summary of it?
- How many days after the exam is the final report signed?
- Is there a same-day discussion, and is it a preliminary opinion or the final report?
- Do I receive the imaging as a complete DICOM study, and on what media or transfer method?
- Is the DICOM release included, or is it a separate request after I leave?
- Will laboratory results carry units, the method, and the laboratory's own reference intervals?
- Does the imaging report include potential limitations and an impression, not only findings?
- Which licensed provider at home should be named to receive results and oversee follow-up?
- Who at the facility can be emailed from abroad with a question, and in what language?
- How long are my images and reports retained, and how do I request them a year from now?
Ask all ten before the deposit. Every one of them is cheap to answer in advance and expensive to chase afterward.
One comparison is worth leaving out of the same decision. Published waiting statistics from different countries are built to different definitions, so ranking them ranks the definitions rather than the systems.
Canada's imaging measure counts "the number of days a patient waited, between the date the order/requisition was received and the date the patient received the scan", and excludes emergency and routine follow-up scans. A series that instead counts how many people are still on a waiting list answers a different question.
The United States publishes neither. The only national outpatient imaging measures the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publishes are two appropriateness measures, and neither of them counts a day.
What can your own doctor do with it?
Read it, act on it, ask for a second interpretation, or repeat the test. All four are legitimate, and none of them is guaranteed.
A right of access to your own records is not an obligation on any clinician to accept a foreign result. Under 45 CFR 164.524 an individual has a right of access to protected health information in a designated record set, and a covered entity must act within 30 days, with one 30 day extension allowed.
That rule binds covered entities in the United States. It says nothing about what any clinician must believe, and it does not reach a clinic in another country at all.
The CDC's advice to medical travelers is to request copies of overseas medical records in English and to provide that information to any health care professional seen afterward for follow-up.
Whether a specific test should be repeated is a judgment for the clinician holding the study. Our piece on incidental findings covers what usually happens when a scan turns something up.
What we deliver, and what you should ask us
New Dawn Health delivers the digital report 2 to 3 weeks after screening. An English physician debrief is available on request.
Beyond those two facts, the answers depend on the facility performing your screening, so ask us rather than assume. In particular, ask about DICOM release, the report's own language, and who to contact after you fly home.
Screening tiers run from Convenient at $299 to Advanced at $3,499, and what each contains is listed on our packages page.
The bottom line
Almost no screening provider publishes what its report contains or what language it is in, and that silence is not evidence of a bad provider. It is evidence that nobody has been made to answer.
Make them answer. Ten questions before a deposit costs you an email and settles the part of the transaction that decides whether the result is usable at home.
If a provider will not put the report language, the report timeline and the DICOM release in writing, buy from one that will.
Sources
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 42 CFR 493.1291, Standard: Test report (accessed 2026-09-09)
- American College of Radiology — ACR Practice Parameter for Communication of Diagnostic Imaging Findings (accessed 2026-09-09)
- DICOM Standard, National Electrical Manufacturers Association — Current Edition (accessed 2026-09-09)
- Samsung Medical Center — Screening Tips and Information (accessed 2026-09-09)
- Samsung Medical Center — Screening Process (accessed 2026-09-09)
- Canadian Institute for Health Information — Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2025: Methodology Notes, CT and MRI definition (accessed 2026-09-09)
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — Outpatient Imaging Efficiency, national file (accessed 2026-09-09)
- CDC Yellow Book — Medical Tourism (accessed 2026-09-09)
- American College of Radiology — ACR-AAPM-SIIM Technical Standard for Electronic Practice of Medical Imaging (accessed 2026-09-09)
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 45 CFR 164.524, Access of individuals to protected health information (accessed 2026-09-09)
- New Dawn Health — package prices (accessed 2026-09-09)
