Sending Medical Records & Scans to a Hospital Abroad

An overseas hospital cannot give you a meaningful treatment plan or a firm quote until its specialists have reviewed your actual history. A remote medical review — where the treating team reads your records and imaging before you travel — is what turns a rough enquiry into a real plan. Sending a complete, readable set of records up front is the single biggest thing you can do to avoid delays, repeated tests on arrival, or surprises once you land.

This is a process guide, not medical advice. It explains how to gather and share your information; the clinical decisions stay with the treating physicians who review it. If you are still at the checklist stage of planning, start with our medical-travel essentials guide first, then come back here when you are ready to assemble the actual paperwork.

Requirements vary by procedure and hospital, but most international patient departments ask for a similar core set. Gather what you can; the treating team will tell you if anything specific to your case is missing.

• A referral letter or a summary from your current doctor describing your diagnosis, symptoms, and the treatment being considered
• Recent imaging — MRI, CT, X-ray, ultrasound or PET scans — as the original image files, not just the written report
• Radiology and pathology reports that go with the imaging
• Recent lab and blood-test results
• A current medication list with dosages, plus any known allergies
• Relevant past operative notes, discharge summaries, or specialist letters
• Your identification and, where the hospital asks, a completed medical-history questionnaire

You rarely need your entire lifetime of records — you need what is relevant to the treatment you are seeking. When in doubt, include it and let the reviewing doctors decide what matters.

Imaging is where most patients get stuck, because a scan is more than the report. Doctors abroad usually want the actual images so their own radiologists can review them — and medical images come in a specific format called DICOM, which is different from an ordinary photo or PDF.

How to get your images out

• Ask the clinic or radiology department that performed the scan for a copy of the images on CD, DVD, or a USB drive — they are required to provide your records on request in most countries
• If you were given a disc, it usually contains the DICOM files plus a small built-in viewer; you can copy the whole disc contents to a folder to share them
• Many hospitals now offer a patient portal — log in and look for an option to download or share your imaging; some issue a secure link or access code for another provider
• If you only have a printed film or a report, ask the imaging center to release the digital DICOM files, since a photo of a film is rarely enough for a specialist review

Do not worry about opening or interpreting the files yourself. The goal is simply to get the original digital images into a form you can hand over. The concierge and the treating hospital's imaging team can confirm the files are complete and readable before your consultation.

For documents, widely readable formats travel best: PDF for letters, reports, and lab results; DICOM for imaging. A clear phone photo of a paper document is acceptable when nothing digital exists, as long as the whole page is legible. Avoid sending only screenshots of a portal — the underlying files carry more detail.

If your records are in a language the treating hospital does not work in, key documents may need translation. International hospitals in China and Thailand routinely serve English-speaking patients and often have bilingual international teams, so the referral summary and main reports are usually the priority for translation rather than every page. Confirm what needs translating before paying for it — the concierge helps identify which documents matter and can coordinate translation so meaning is preserved accurately.

Your medical records are sensitive personal data, so share them through secure channels rather than ordinary email where you can. Use the hospital's or concierge's secure upload or portal, or an encrypted, password-protected file, and send any password by a separate channel. Keep your own master copy — both digital and, for the essentials, paper — so you always have a backup.

You control who sees your information and for what purpose: sharing it with a hospital abroad is to obtain a treatment plan and quote. Ask how your data will be stored and who will have access, and only share what is relevant to your care. A trustworthy facilitator handles your records on a need-to-know basis and does not pass them to unrelated parties.

MyCureVoyage is a medical-travel concierge and facilitator, not a medical provider — all clinical review and care is delivered by independent, accredited hospitals and licensed physicians. On records, our job is to make the transfer smooth: we tell you exactly what the specific hospital needs for your case, give you a secure way to send documents and imaging, check that the files are complete and readable before they reach the doctors, coordinate translation of the documents that matter, and pass everything to the international patient team for their pre-travel review.

We coordinate and organize; we do not diagnose, interpret your scans, or make clinical decisions — those belong to the reviewing physicians. The value of the concierge model here is that you are not left guessing which files to export, whether a disc is readable overseas, or how to get a report translated. When the hospital has what it needs, the review and planning can move quickly.

Any costs and savings shown across the site follow one rule and are never a quote until doctors review your records: see your personalized estimate on the calculator, and the deposit page for how a consultation begins.

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Get a free estimate for your procedure, or start your consultation and let your Care Companion walk you through every step.