Price methodology
Every price on the registry is a citation, not a quote. The rules below summarise what we publish, where the number comes from, when it expires, and what is deliberately excluded. The fuller document is at /cost-methodology.
What a price record contains
- procedure and country (and, where available, clinic) — the scope of the band.
- currency in ISO 4217 and a low / high amount.
- as-of date — when the price was last confirmed against its source.
- sourceSlugs — one or more entries in the registry-wide source list.
- includes / excludes — what the price covers (e.g. consultation, implant, anaesthetist, first follow-up) and what it does not (e.g. lab work, medications, accommodation).
What counts as a source
In order of preference: the clinic’s own published price (URL on file), a national-regulator or national-health-service published tariff, a peer-reviewed cost study with DOI, or a documented written quote sent to a researcher with the itemisation visible. Aggregator websites, facilitator platforms, and patient-forum reports are not sources for price claims — they may inform a researcher to seek a primary source, but they do not stand on their own.
Date limits
Price records older than twelve months are flagged stale and excluded from the country-band comparison until re-confirmed. The published date is always visible alongside the number; a price without an as-of date is not displayed.
Currency conversion
Prices are stored in the source currency. Display-time conversion uses a build-time exchange-rate snapshot — the conversion date is shown next to the converted amount. We do not call live FX APIs.
What we do not publish
- Single-figure prices presented as if they were the procedure’s cost. Bands only.
- Promotional “from” prices without itemisation. Patients see the floor of the all-in cost, not a teaser.
- Facilitator pricing as clinic pricing. Facilitator margins are not registry data.
- Prices for which the source URL no longer resolves and cannot be archived.
Price transparency score
Each clinic carries a derived score reflecting whether it publishes prices, whether the published prices itemise inclusions / exclusions, and how recently those prices were updated. The score is built from observable facts — it is not a quality judgement.
A price is not a quote
Patients should treat every registry price as a reference band, not a binding figure. Always obtain a written, itemised quote from the clinic before paying a deposit, and run it through the cost estimator to identify gaps.