Checkup packages abroad

Whatever the tests in the package can find. Some, like a mammogram or a colonoscopy, are proven screening tests. Others, like thyroid ultrasounds or tumour-marker blood tests, aren’t recommended for people without symptoms.

Anything its tests aren’t designed to look for. One visit doesn’t replace regular screening at home, and results kept abroad or written in another language are hard for your doctor here to use.

In South Korea, thyroid ultrasounds were often added to checkups for a small fee. By 2011, thyroid cancer was being diagnosed 15 times as often as in 1993, but deaths from it had not changed. The US Preventive Services Task Force calls this the best population-level evidence that such screening finds cancers that would never have caused harm.

You pay for the package and the trip. Your provincial health plan may not cover complications that begin abroad, and most travel insurance won’t cover planned medical care in another country. Get the price and what it includes in writing.

The Government of Canada’s travel advice: see a health care provider in Canada before you go, check the credentials of whoever will care for you, bring home copies of every result and scan, and review them with a provider when you’re back.