The median wait from specialist referral to treatment in Canada was 28.6 weeks in 2025. In Seoul the same imaging is scheduled in three days. This page compares the two. The methodology line under the comparison table names every source this page draws on and the date each was read. Individual figures carry their own notes where there is more to say.
National median, 2025 (Fraser Institute, Waiting Your Turn 2025). Provincial medians run from 12.0 weeks in Ontario and Quebec to 52.0 in Prince Edward Island.
GP referral to treatment across specialties, 2025 median (Fraser Institute, Waiting Your Turn 2025). It measures the whole path to treatment, not the wait for a scan date.
Booked and completed inside one visit.
Same-day consult on preliminary findings; the full report follows in two weeks on average, one at the soonest and three at the latest. You are not in Korea waiting for it. Reports are sent by email (or by post, at one centre) once ready, after you have already flown home, so a longer report does not mean a longer trip.
The methodology line under the comparison table names every source this page draws on and the date each was read. Individual figures carry their own notes where there is more to say.
Fraser Institute, Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2025, published 2025-12-09 from a survey of physicians run January to May 2025. Median wait of 18.1 weeks for an MRI and 8.8 weeks for a CT, and 28.6 weeks from GP referral to treatment. Provincial MRI medians run from 12.0 weeks in Ontario and Quebec to 52.0 weeks in Prince Edward Island. The same report lists colonoscopy per province rather than nationally, and for the specialist-to-procedure segment only: on the gastroenterology route the medians run from 4.0 weeks in Ontario to 40.0 in Newfoundland and Labrador. Neither the Fraser Institute nor CIHI publishes a national colonoscopy median, and CIHI does not track colonoscopy among its priority procedures at all. Korea side: a Korean partner centre's published non-covered (비급여) price list, the itemised document 의료법 제45조 requires a clinic to publish, read 2026-08-05. A brain MRI is ₩319,000. Home side: self-pay prices as published by imaging providers and price guides in each market, read 2026-08-06. (https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2025), measured 2026-08-06. Dollar figures are converted from each centre's won price at ₩1,342 = $1 (open.er-api.com, 2026-09-13). The won figure is the price; the pairing moves with the rate.
