| Independently reported | |
| Uncollected costs from Cambodian border patients in Thailand | THB 277 million in fiscal year 2024, about 12 per cent of the national total[1] |
|---|---|
| Service encounters | 160,000 at the Thai-Cambodian border[1] |
| Source of those figures | Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Council, citing Ministry of Public Health data as at 28 February 2025[1] |
| Thailand’s total uncollected border costs | THB 2,315 million in fiscal year 2024, up 12.6 per cent on the previous year[1] |
| Cambodian outbound travel | Reported as 1.2 million in 2015 and 1.4 million in 2016 for medical care and holidays combined, with no source given for the data[2] |
| Share going for treatment | Between 24 and 30 per cent of Cambodian tourists travel to Vietnam and Thailand for treatment[2] |
| State of the statistics | There is no complete set of statistics on outbound medical travel from Cambodia[2] |
| This entry has no primary-record band. No Cambodian government statistic was read directly. The only firm figures come from Thai government accounting for unpaid bills, which measures Cambodian patients from the destination’s ledger rather than from Cambodia, and the Cambodian travel figures combine medical care with holidays and carry no stated source. No typical cost range is given. | |
Medical tourism in Cambodia is outbound, and the firmest evidence for it is an accounting entry in another country’s books. Thailand recorded 277 million baht of uncollected healthcare costs from Cambodian border patients in fiscal year 2024, across 160,000 service encounters. Cambodia’s own figures combine medical travel with holidays and, by the admission of the source reporting them, do not exist as a complete set.
What Thailand counts
A report published on 16 June 2025 records Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Council, in its report for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2024 and citing Ministry of Public Health data as at 28 February 2025, putting uncollected costs from Cambodian border patients at 277 million baht, about 12 per cent of the national total, across 160,000 service encounters at the Thai-Cambodian border. Total uncollected costs from foreign nationals in Thai border areas were 2,315 million baht in fiscal year 2024, up 12.6 per cent on the previous year.[1]
The Thai response is instructive. The health ministry was pushing for fuller enforcement of an existing Cabinet resolution on managing foreign patients, which the report says had not been fully implemented, and planned to create patient records and health insurance provisions for unregistered workers. Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin said foreign nationals illegally using the universal healthcare scheme would face prosecution, said Cambodian patients would keep seeking care in Thai hospitals, and denied rumours that the Cambodian government had told its citizens to avoid them.[1]
These are not medical tourists in the commercial sense and the distinction matters. A figure for unpaid bills at border hospitals describes people crossing a land border to obtain care they cannot get or afford at home, in numbers large enough to register as a fiscal problem for the neighbour. That is cross-border care under duress, and it is counted only because someone had to write off the cost.
What Cambodia does not count
A report published on 23 July 2019 states plainly that there is no complete set of statistics on outbound medical travel from Cambodia. The figures it relays, attributed to an article in the Phnom Penh Post, give outbound Cambodians travelling for medical care and holidays combined rising from 1.2 million in 2015 to 1.4 million in 2016 against a population of 15.76 million, and the report notes that no source for this data was given. It records a separate figure of 1.75 million attributed to the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism for medical purposes and vacationing, relayed from the publication’s own earlier reporting, and does not reconcile the two. Between 24 and 30 per cent of Cambodian tourists are said to travel to Vietnam and Thailand for treatment.[2]
Combining medical care with holidays in a single total makes the figure unusable for this purpose, and the percentage applied to it is a share of tourists rather than of medical travellers. Neither number can be converted into a count of Cambodians who travelled abroad for treatment, and this entry does not attempt it.
On causes, the same report cites Dr Heng Taikry, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Health, acknowledging that some hospitals have equipment on a par with Singapore’s but lack enough qualified staff, and describes Phnom Penh’s Calmette hospital in those terms. It refers to an unnamed recent study of public health facility users whose respondents complained of poor hygiene and high service costs, giving no survey name, sample size or methodology, and reports concerns about physician ethics including exaggerated diagnoses. It also notes that dentistry in Cambodia is often up to 70 per cent cheaper than in neighbouring countries.[2]
The equipment-without-staff diagnosis matches what the Indonesian president said of his own country, and it is the recurring explanation across this series for outbound flows from middle-income countries: capital is easier to buy than specialists.
Cambodia as a destination
Cambodia appears in the regional record as a source of patients to Vietnam as well as to Thailand: the Vietnamese health minister’s account of more than 300,000 foreigners treated in Vietnam in 2018 named smaller groups from Laos and Cambodia among them. No figure for foreign patients treated in Cambodia was located, and the dental price advantage noted above is the only indication in the sources of an inbound proposition.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists cosmetic surgery, dental care, cancer treatment, fertility treatment and organ transplantation as the procedures most often sought abroad, notes that some highly resistant bacteria and fungi appear more common in some countries where patients seek care, and states that accreditation does not guarantee a good outcome.[3]
Limits of the evidence
No Cambodian government statistic was read directly, and the Cambodian figures that appear here are unusable for measuring medical travel and are labelled as such. The Thai figures are robust but measure unpaid bills rather than patients, and 160,000 service encounters is not 160,000 people. The study of facility users is unnamed and unquantified. Nothing has been estimated, and no Cambodian outbound medical travel figure is offered anywhere in this entry.
See also
- Cross-border healthcare for border communities, which the Thai figures actually measure
- Medical tourism in Thailand, the destination carrying the unpaid costs
- Medical tourism in Vietnam, which also records Cambodian patients
- Medical tourism and health system capacity, the equipment-without-staff problem
- Medical tourism statistics, and a country with no complete set
References
- The Nation Thailand. Thailand faces THB277 million in unpaid healthcare costs from Cambodian border patients in 2024. Published 16 June 2025. Independently reported: the report was opened and the figure of 277 million baht in uncollected costs from Cambodian border patients in fiscal year 2024 representing about 12 per cent of the national total, the 160,000 service encounters at the Thai-Cambodian border, the attribution to the National Economic and Social Development Council report for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2024 citing Ministry of Public Health data as at 28 February 2025, the total uncollected costs from foreign nationals in border areas of 2,315 million baht in fiscal year 2024 up 12.6 per cent on the previous year, the health ministry’s push for fuller enforcement of an existing Cabinet resolution on managing foreign patients which had not been fully implemented, the plan to create patient records and health insurance provisions for unregistered workers, and Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin’s statements that foreign nationals illegally using the universal healthcare scheme would face prosecution, that Cambodian patients would keep seeking care in Thai hospitals and that he denied rumours the Cambodian government had told its citizens to avoid them were read directly. The report names no specific provinces or hospitals and gives no separate patient count. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- International Medical Travel Journal. A third go to Vietnam and Thailand. Published 23 July 2019. Independently reported: the report was opened and its explicit statement that there is no complete set of statistics on outbound medical travel from Cambodia, the figures of 1.2 million outbound Cambodians in 2015 and 1.4 million in 2016 for medical care and holidays combined against a population of 15.76 million attributed to an article in the Phnom Penh Post with the note that no source of this data was given, the separate figure of 1.75 million attributed to the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism for medical purposes and vacationing relayed from the publication’s own earlier reporting without reconciliation, the statement that between 24 and 30 per cent of Cambodian tourists travel to Vietnam and Thailand for treatment, the acknowledgement by Dr Heng Taikry, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Health, that some hospitals have equipment on a par with Singapore’s but lack enough qualified staff, the description of Phnom Penh’s Calmette hospital, the reference to an unnamed recent study of public health facility users complaining of poor hygiene and high service costs with no survey name, sample size or methodology given, the concerns reported about physician ethics including exaggerated diagnoses, and the statement that dentistry in Cambodia is often up to 70 per cent cheaper than in neighbouring countries were read directly. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Stoney, R. J. and Leidel, L. Medical Tourism. CDC Yellow Book: Health Information for International Travel, 2026 edition, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Page dated 23 April 2025. Independently reported: the chapter was opened and the listing of cosmetic surgery, dental care, cancer treatment, fertility treatment and organ transplantation as the procedures most often sought abroad, the note that highly resistant bacteria and fungi appear more common in some countries where patients seek care, and the statement that accreditation does not guarantee a good outcome were read directly. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
Sourcing note: no Cambodian outbound medical travel figure is given, because the only available totals combine medical care with holidays and carry no stated source, which the reporting source itself flags. The Thai figures are presented as what they are, an accounting of unpaid bills and service encounters rather than a patient count. The two conflicting Cambodian totals are reported unreconciled, as the source leaves them. Nothing has been estimated.