For a comprehensive health screening, the four realistic destinations are Korea, Japan, Thailand and India. They differ less in quality than in what they optimise for: Korea for scanner access and same-day throughput, Japan for its established ningen dock protocol, Thailand for hospitality and price, India for lowest cost. This page compares them on the axes that change the decision.
| Korea | Japan | Thailand | India | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comprehensive package, self-pay | ≈ $671–1,490 ₩900,000–2,000,000. 9 published programs across the four partner centres: the baseline plus endoscopy, CT or a first MRI, and the panels that decide whether a finding matters | ≈ $547–1,779 ¥86,900–282,700 tax incl., day standard to overnight special. Sedation and head MRI are paid add-ons | ≈ $1,058 ฿34,900. No CT, no MRI and no endoscopy in this package | — No hospital-published price found. The large groups publish contents, not prices |
| CT, MRI and PET units per million | 87.4 OECD average is 51.0 | 184.1 Highest in the OECD, by a wide margin | — Not in OECD data. CT alone was 6.0 per million in 2013 (WHO) | — Neither the OECD nor the WHO publishes a current figure |
| Endoscopy under sedation | Included Sedated colonoscopy is inside the package price | Paid option Intravenous sedation for gastroscopy and colonoscopy is priced separately | Not in package Endoscopy itself is sold separately at this hospital | — Not established |
| Same-day full work-up | Yes Meridiko's own operating commitment | Often overnight The fuller courses at this centre are 1泊 or 2泊 stays | — Not established | — Not established |
Japan wins scanner density outright, and not narrowly: 184 units per million against Korea's 87, the highest in the OECD. Price is the row neither country wins. Japan's comparable courses start below the bottom of Korea's Comprehensive band and finish above the top of it, so which country is cheaper depends on which course you would actually book rather than on the country. Those courses are often overnight rather than same-day, and sedation for endoscopy is billed separately.
The prices are not directly comparable, and the notes say so rather than hiding it. Thailand's package is the clearest case: it looks like a competitor to Korea's until you read that it contains no CT, no MRI and no endoscopy at all. A table that put those two numbers side by side without that line would be comparing a different purchase. The same honesty that costs Korea the scanner row is what makes the rest worth citing.
Korea: the four partner centres' own programme documents, read on the ledger's version date; see /pricing/. Japan: 山王メディカルセンター (Sanno Medical Center) 予防医学センター published 人間ドック price list, tax included, effective 2026-07-01, read 2026-08-11. Thailand: Bumrungrad International Hospital's published Comprehensive Program (Male) package page, read 2026-08-11. Scanner units: OECD, Health at a Glance 2025, Figure 9.10 underlying dataset, 2023 or nearest year; Thailand's CT figure is WHO Global Health Observatory indicator DEVICES09, 2013. The OECD states there is no benchmark for an ideal number of scanners, so density is reported here as capacity and not as quality. Non-won currencies converted at the rates published by open.er-api.com on 2026-08-11 (1 USD = ¥158.95, ฿33.00).
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.
