Raffles Medical Group Treats 37,000 Foreign Patients in China in 2025 — Singapore's Hospital Operator Bets Big on Inbound Medical Tourism

1. Why This Week's Report Matters More Than Most

Most coverage of inbound medical tourism to China has been either: (a) macroeconomic state-media dispatches with round numbers, (b) individual patient stories with limited context, or (c) industry forecasts. The Straits Times article by Beijing-based correspondent Michelle Ng, published June 21, 2026, is unusual because it combines all three — and because it has named institutional sources, not anonymous ones. Raffles Medical Group is a Singapore Exchange–listed hospital operator that has run hospitals in China for years; the China Joyful Medical agency is a real Shanghai firm with traceable leadership; and the named patients (Emma Holden from New Zealand, the Australian dental-veneer patient in Anhui, the British TikToker Amie) are quotable individuals, not composites. When an institutional operator and an intermediary agency both publish real numbers in the same week, the trend is no longer a trend — it is a market.

This matters for international patients considering China for several reasons. First, the institutions that handle foreign patients are now identifiable, accountable, and increasingly English-fluent — the era of "you have to know someone in Shanghai" is fading. Second, the demand is real and rising from specific source markets (Russia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australasia, and now the UK and US) — meaning referral networks and embassy medical-liaison capacity are likely to grow. Third, the treatments being sought are the ones China is structurally good at — advanced oncology, CAR-T, gene therapy, dental implants, and traditional Chinese medicine combined with Western care — so the inbound growth is matching the medical capability, not just chasing low price tags.

The remainder of this article walks through the three new data points (Raffles institutional scale, China Joyful Medical agency growth, Emma Holden's CAR-T case), the cost comparisons that put the trend in context, the structural gaps that still exist, and what an international patient should do with this information.

2. Raffles Medical Group: 37,000 Foreign Patients Across Three China Hospitals

The Raffles footprint matters because it is the first time a major international hospital operator has published its China-only foreign-patient volume at this level of detail. Raffles is not a startup or a single-site experiment — the group runs hospital networks in Singapore, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and other markets, and reports segment-level results. Putting a 37,000-patient number on the table (with a 7.9% growth rate) is the kind of disclosure that signals to the rest of the industry that cross-border patient flow to China is a measurable line item, not a marketing story.

For international patients, the practical implication is that Raffles China hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing are now part of the routable hospital map. The hospitals accept most major international insurance plans, run English-departments, and have established appointment pathways. For patients from Russia and Central Asia, the geographic concentration (Beijing in the north, Shanghai on the east coast, Chongqing in the southwest) covers most of the country's main inbound-airport corridors.

3. Emma Holden's CAR-T Story: A New Zealand Patient Wins in Shanghai

The Holden case is one of a growing cluster of foreign-patient CAR-T stories that have come out of Shanghai over the past 18 months. We have covered several of them on this site, including a Pakistani patient's lymphoma CAR-T at Jiahui International Cancer Center in Shanghai (June 6, 2026), a New Zealand lymphoma patient's complex multi-drug regimen at the same hospital (June 11, 2026, the BT/Bloomberg piece), and a Chinese GPC3 CAR-T for liver cancer that drew international attention in the hepatocellular-carcinoma research community (June 9, 2026). The structural pattern is consistent: patients with hematologic malignancies whose home-country options are exhausted, who can afford to travel, and whose cases match the inclusion criteria of established Chinese CAR-T centers, are routing to Shanghai and Beijing for treatment.

For patients considering this pathway, three things are worth understanding. First, the molecule and the manufacturing are largely standardized — what varies is the clinical experience of the treating team and the post-infusion monitoring infrastructure. Second, the cost is dramatically lower than the US list price — typically one-third or less, which means a USD 500,000 American treatment can be obtained in China for USD 150,000 to USD 200,000 before hospitalisation, according to Cui Cui, head of Asia healthcare research at Jefferies, in the same Straits Times report. Third, the follow-up care question is real — patients typically return home after the acute treatment phase, and cross-border monitoring requires either an established partnership between the Chinese center and a home-country oncologist, or a willing local hematologist who will accept the Chinese center's discharge summary as the treatment plan.

4. China Joyful Medical: An Agency's Growth Tells the Same Story

The agency growth is a useful complement to the Raffles institutional numbers. Raffles reports 37,000 patients treated; China Joyful reports 30-40 monthly enquiries from one of several such agencies in Shanghai. Multiplied across the agency ecosystem — there are at least five or six established Shanghai agencies, plus the in-house international-patient departments of major hospitals — the implied inbound enquiry flow is in the low thousands per month, with several hundred per month converting to treatment in China. The economics are workable: even at a 10% commission on a USD 30,000 average treatment course, 200-300 successful placements per month across the agency ecosystem is a meaningful, sustainable business.

For international patients, the agency layer is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, agencies solve the language, logistics, and hospital-matching problems that have historically been the single biggest barrier to inbound medical tourism to China. On the negative side, the agency layer adds cost, and the quality of agencies varies widely. The major Shanghai agencies have hospital relationships and clinical-coordination staff; smaller or newer operators may not. The 2026-04-18 piece on China as a global CAR-T destination walked through how to vet a Chinese medical-tourism agency — the short version is to ask which hospital they place with, what their clinical-coordination credentials are, and whether they have a transparent fee structure.

5. The Cost Structure: Why the Cross-Border Math Works

Cost is not the only reason patients come to China, but it is the most legible one. The Straits Times report pulls together current pricing data that puts the China-versus-West gap in concrete terms.

Two important caveats. First, these are list prices and do not include travel, accommodation, visa, or post-treatment follow-up costs. Second, the China price often includes services that are billed separately in Western systems (consultations, nursing, in-hospital medications), so the true out-of-pocket difference can be larger than the headline numbers suggest.

The CAR-T comparison is the one that most often surprises patients and their families. The reason the cost gap is so large is structural: China has seven approved CAR-T products as of 2026, most developed by domestic biotech companies (Fosun Kite, JW Therapeutics, Carsgen, Oricell, and others), and the manufacturing ecosystem is fully domestic. The US has 6 approved CAR-T products, but the manufacturing is concentrated in two companies (Novartis for Kymriah, Bristol-Myers Squibb for Breyanzi and Abecma) at US-list prices that reflect the underlying R&D cost recovery. The combination of domestic manufacturing, multiple approved products, and a price-sensitive payer environment has pushed China CAR-T list prices down to roughly one-third of the US benchmark — and that is before negotiated hospital pricing or insurance coverage.

Dentistry has been a more durable cross-border flow than CAR-T, with the same volume-and-cost story: dental implants in China at USD 2,000-3,000 per tooth, with bundled accommodation-and-sightseeing packages available from agencies like China Joyful Medical that make the total cost (including airfare, hotel, and a week of tourism) lower than the dental procedure alone in Australia, the UK, or the US. The Anhui-veneer patient Victor Cao described in the Straits Times interview had the work split into two appointments a week apart, with Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Yiwu in between — a working-holiday structure that agencies have become quite good at packaging.

6. What China Is Structurally Good At — And What It Is Not

The most useful single quote from Cui Cui, the Jefferies analyst in the Straits Times report: "China's key edge lies in complex oncology and advanced therapeutics, which is not in direct competition with neighbours such as South Korea, which specialises in cosmetic procedures." This is the core insight for international patients. China's inbound medical tourism is not competing with Bangkok or Seoul for cosmetic surgery or executive wellness; it is competing with Boston, Houston, London, and Singapore for serious-illness care at lower cost.

The areas where Chinese hospitals are now demonstrably competitive, based on the institutional and patient data in the Straits Times report and our previous coverage, are:

• Advanced oncology, especially blood cancers and hepatocellular carcinoma. China has the world's largest patient population for many cancers, which means Chinese oncologists see higher volumes of complex cases than their Western counterparts. CAR-T for B-cell lymphomas, BCMA-directed CAR-T for myeloma, and locoregional-plus-systemic regimens for HCC (like the camrelizumab + rivoceranib + TACE triplet covered in the 06-20 ASCO piece) are areas where Chinese clinical experience is now genuinely a global reference.
• Dental restoration and cosmetic dentistry. China has a mature dental-implant and veneer ecosystem with internationally trained dentists, modern equipment, and aggressive pricing. The Anhui-veneer and other dental cases in the Straits Times piece are representative of a flow that has been building for a decade.
• Traditional Chinese medicine integrated with Western care. China is the only country in the world where TCM is delivered in the same hospitals as Western medicine, with the same physicians (or in coordinated teams). For conditions where TCM adjuncts are evidence-supported (post-cancer rehabilitation, chronic disease management, pain, insomnia), this integration is a unique structural advantage that no other country can replicate.
• Gene therapy and cell therapy trials. China has the largest number of active CAR-T and gene-therapy clinical trials in the world. For patients with no FDA- or EMA-approved option, cross-border trial enrollment at a Chinese academic center is increasingly the realistic path.
• Executive health screenings. Comprehensive one- to two-day checkups at top-tier Chinese hospitals cost USD 500-1,500 and produce same-day results for most categories. Raffles China explicitly highlights this turnaround time as a differentiator.

The areas where China is not yet structurally competitive, based on the same source material, are:

• Cosmetic surgery at the highest end. South Korea's Gangnam district has decades of patient-flow infrastructure that China is still building. For top-of-market rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty, and facial-contouring work, Korea and Thailand still lead.
• Reproductive medicine and gender-affirming care. The regulatory and social environment in China is more restrictive than in Thailand or the US for these categories. Patients in these segments continue to route to Bangkok, San Francisco, and Tel Aviv.
• Organ transplantation for foreign patients. Chinese transplant programs serve domestic patients at scale, but the regulatory pathway for foreign recipients is restrictive, and most major programs do not actively market to international patients. India, the Philippines, and (historically) Pakistan have been the dominant destinations.
• Cross-border insurance portability. Few international health-insurance plans cover treatment in China. Patients typically pay out of pocket, even at internationally accredited hospitals. The exception is a small number of insurers (BUPA Global, Cigna Global, Aetna International) that have direct-billing relationships with specific Chinese hospitals — usually in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
• Multilingual continuity of care. Major Chinese hospitals with international-patient departments have English- (and often Russian, Arabic, and Japanese-) speaking coordinators, but the full care team — nurses, junior physicians, lab technicians — is overwhelmingly Chinese-speaking. Cross-border patients need either a competent family member, a dedicated medical interpreter, or an agency with clinical-coordination staff for the duration of treatment.

7. The Structural Gaps That Still Exist

Despite the institutional and patient-flow data, the Straits Times report is clear-eyed about what China has not yet built. Two of the most important structural gaps are:

1. No dedicated medical-visa category. Most patients currently enter China on tourist or business visas. China's visa-free policy covers citizens of more than 70 countries for stays of up to 30 days — which is enough for many outpatient procedures, dental work, or health screenings, but not enough for multi-month treatment courses like CAR-T with extended monitoring. A dedicated medical visa — analogous to the medical-tourism visas that India, Thailand, and Singapore have introduced — would lower the friction for serious-illness care. Cui Cui, the Jefferies analyst, named this as the single most important structural change China could make to accelerate inbound medical tourism.

2. No established international referral network. The current inbound flow is driven by social media (especially TikTok, YouTube, and word-of-mouth via prior patients) and by intermediary agencies. It is not driven by hospital-to-hospital referral partnerships, international-insurance networks, or physician-to-physician introductions — the channels that dominate inbound flow to Thailand, Singapore, and India. The result is that the patients who come are disproportionately the ones with the resources to research their own options, the language ability to use Chinese hospital websites, or the social-media exposure to hear about the option. Patients who lack any of these — the vast majority of medically suitable patients in source countries — do not currently reach Chinese hospitals.

A third gap, less often discussed but real, is cross-border follow-up. For most treatment courses in China, the patient returns home after the acute phase. Post-treatment monitoring, complication management, and long-term survivorship care happen in the home country. This works when the home country has a competent specialist willing to accept the Chinese center's discharge summary and continue the treatment plan. It works less well when the home-country physician is unfamiliar with the specific drug, device, or regimen that was used. The result is a discontinuity-of-care risk that is currently shouldered mostly by patients and their families.

8. How This Connects to the Wider China Medical-Tourism Story

The Straits Times report is consistent with several pieces we have published on this site over the past two months, and together they describe a market that is no longer hypothetical:

• April 10, 2026: 1.28 million foreign patients at major Chinese hospitals in 2025. The headline state-media-cited figure, with the 73.6% three-year growth rate and the Boao Lecheng-specific 109.18% growth, was the first time the volume was reported at a level that put China into a comparable discussion with regional hubs like Thailand, India, and Singapore.
• April 18, 2026: China as a global CAR-T destination. Coverage of how Chinese CAR-T programs (Fosun Kite's Yescarta, JW Therapeutics's Carteyva, Oricell's Ori-C101 for HCC) have become a structural option for international patients with blood cancers and solid tumors.
• June 6, 2026: Pakistani patient's CAR-T at Jiahui International Cancer Center, Shanghai. A representative case of a non-resident foreign patient with relapsed lymphoma reaching Shanghai for CAR-T, including the agency coordination pathway and the treatment-cost structure.
• June 9, 2026: Oricell Ori-C101 GPC3 CAR-T for hepatocellular carcinoma. Coverage of the NMPA Phase II clearance for Ori-C101 — a Chinese-developed CAR-T for solid tumors — and what it means for international patients with HCC who have exhausted standard systemic therapy.
• June 11, 2026: Business Times / Bloomberg on China medical tourism. A broader piece on the macro trend, including a New Zealand lymphoma patient's narrative, the May 2026 clinical-research-fee changes, and the USD 1.3B → USD 3.4B China market projection through 2035.
• June 20, 2026: Hengrui Pharma's 91-study ASCO 2026 portfolio. Coverage of the late-stage randomized data that positions Chinese oncology drug development as globally competitive, with specific pathways for international-patient access.

The June 22 Straits Times report adds the institutional and agency-growth dimension that those previous pieces did not have. Where the Business Times/Bloomberg piece was about the macro market and individual patient narratives, the Straits Times piece is about the operators and the agencies that are scaling to handle the demand. The two pieces together give a more complete picture of the inbound medical tourism market than either does alone.

9. Practical Next Steps for International Patients

For patients, families, and referring physicians considering China for treatment after reading this article or any of the prior pieces on this site, the practical first step is a case-by-case assessment. The most important early questions are:

1. Is your specific treatment available and approved in your home country? If yes, the case for going to China is cost-driven, and the answer depends on how much cost matters versus continuity of care. If no, the case for going to China is access-driven, and the priority is finding the right center with experience in your specific condition.
2. What is the most experienced Chinese center for your condition? For CAR-T, the major centers are in Shanghai (Jiahui International Cancer Center, Ruijin Hospital, Fudan Shanghai Cancer Center) and Beijing (Peking University Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Hospital). For solid-tumor CAR-T and gene therapy trials, Shanghai and Guangzhou have the largest programs. For complex oncology in general, Fudan Shanghai Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou, and Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai are the highest-volume academic centers. For dentistry, Raffles China in Beijing/Shanghai/Chongqing and a network of dedicated international dental clinics in major cities are the established entry points.
3. What is the realistic cost, and how will you pay for it? Most international patients pay out of pocket. International insurance coverage for treatment in China is limited but growing. Major Chinese hospitals accept wire transfers and major credit cards; some of the more expensive treatments (CAR-T, gene therapy) require deposits in advance of treatment.
4. What is the visa pathway? Most patients use tourist or business visas. China's visa-free policy covers 30-day stays for citizens of more than 70 countries, which is sufficient for many outpatient procedures. For longer treatment courses, a medical visa (currently issued on a case-by-case basis through Chinese consulates) is the appropriate pathway, although it is not yet a streamlined category the way it is in India or Thailand.
5. Do you need an agency? For most patients, yes — the logistics of hospital selection, appointment scheduling, language interpretation, and post-treatment follow-up coordination are non-trivial, and the established Shanghai-based agencies have institutional knowledge that is hard to replicate independently. Vet the agency on the criteria we described in the 2026-04-18 piece: which hospital they place with, what their clinical-coordination credentials are, and whether they have a transparent fee structure.

The market is no longer hypothetical, but it is also not yet a streamlined consumer experience. The patients who have successful outcomes in China are the ones who do the upfront research, choose the right hospital for their specific condition, work with a competent agency or coordinator, and have a realistic plan for follow-up care at home. The June 21 Straits Times report makes clear that the institutional infrastructure to support this — Raffles China Healthcare, China Joyful Medical, the academic cancer centers, and the major dental hospitals — is now real, named, and growing.

10. Bottom Line

The Straits Times report on foreign patients at Raffles Medical Group, SinoUnited Health, and the Shanghai CAR-T programs is the clearest single signal yet that inbound medical tourism to China is institutionalizing. Three data points anchor the shift: Raffles Medical Group treated 37,000 international patients from 130 countries across its three China hospitals in 2025, up 7.9% year-on-year; Shanghai-based China Joyful Medical saw monthly enquiry volume triple from 10 to 30-40 between mid-2025 and mid-2026; and individual patient stories like Emma Holden's myeloma CAR-T in Shanghai are no longer one-off anecdotes but a structural pattern that is repeating across multiple hospitals and treatment categories.

For international patients whose home-country system cannot deliver a specific treatment, cannot deliver it fast enough, or cannot deliver it at a workable cost, China's major international-facing hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Hainan are increasingly a realistic option. The cost gap remains structural (typically one-third of US prices for advanced oncology, less for dental), the institutional infrastructure is growing, and the cross-border pathway is becoming more routable each year. The structural gaps — no dedicated medical visa, limited international insurance coverage, cross-border follow-up friction — are real but solvable, and several of them are likely to be addressed in the next 12-24 months as the market continues to scale.

We will be tracking the Raffles Medical Group quarterly disclosures, the China Joyful Medical enquiry data, and individual patient stories from the major Chinese academic centers. As the market continues to grow, the practical pathway for international patients becomes clearer, and the patient experience becomes more predictable. That is the structural change that the June 2026 data is pointing to.