The $200,000 procedure that costs $20,000 abroad

Limb lengthening surgery adds height, or corrects a difference between legs, by gradually separating and regrowing bone — usually the femur or tibia — over several weeks. It's done with an internal telescoping nail (PRECICE, Fitbone) or an external frame (Ilizarov), and the price swings harder by country than almost any other procedure we track.

In the US, one segment — a single femur or tibia, with an internal nail — runs $90,000 to $140,000. Go bilateral, or lengthen a second segment, and the total can reach $200,000–$250,000.

Turkey and India lead the destinations for this procedure, for the same reason they lead most orthopedic tourism: clinics built specifically around it, and surgeons who do the volume to stay current on it. In Turkey, internal-nail methods commonly run $20,000–$35,000; the older external-frame (LON) technique can come in as low as $26,000. India runs lower still — roughly $6,000–$10,000 for external-frame methods, per several clinic-published guides. Figures for Precice in India varied too widely between sources for us to state a single range with confidence. [VERIFY: source]

This isn't a same-week trip. Recovery runs two to three months, most of it spent in the country where you had surgery — which changes what "included" has to mean.

A typical all-inclusive package covers the surgery, hospital stay, two to three months in a hotel or apartment set up for recovering patients, daily physiotherapy, X-rays, medications, nursing visits, and transfers between the airport, hospital and hotel.

It typically does not cover flights, the cost of anyone traveling with you, physiotherapy beyond the weeks the package specifies, or complications. One cost that catches people off guard: the implant itself usually needs a second, separate surgery to remove it 12–18 months later, and that's rarely priced into the original package.

A foreign surgical team is starting from nothing unless you hand them something. Prior scans, an allergy list, and your current medications are close to the minimum a surgeon needs before committing to an operating date — the kind of thing a Private Health Passport is built to carry with you, not sell you on.

Before you commit to a country or a clinic, ask for one written document stating what the quoted price covers, for how long, and what happens if the implant needs removing later. If a clinic can't produce that document, that's information too.