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Accreditation, explained

The badges on a clinic’s website mean very different things.

Some took a three-day inspection by people who watched real surgeries. Some took a bank transfer. Here’s how to tell the difference — and what we check before a clinic appears on JetPatient.

credentials researched across markets · last reviewed 14 Aug 2026
The rule that matters most
The clinician you choose is the clinician who treats you.

Not their colleague. Not a technician working under supervision. Not “the surgeon or their designee.” The person whose credentials we verified and whose name is on your quote is the person who performs your procedure — with assistants where that’s normal practice, and we’ll tell you who they are. If that ever changes, you agree to it first, in advance, in writing.

The floor

Nothing gets listed without these three

Before anything else, every clinic on JetPatient clears the same floor. There are no exceptions and no “pending” status. It isn’t impressive — it’s the legal minimum. But you’d be surprised how many clinics marketing to foreign patients don’t clear it, and it’s invisible from a website.

1

A current licence to operate

Issued by the health regulator in that country. Mexico’s Licencia Sanitaria, Türkiye’s Ministry ruhsat, Singapore’s HCSA licence. Every country has one, and every version means the same thing: the state has confirmed this facility may legally do what it’s doing.

2

A currently registered treating clinician

Not “a doctor works there.” Your doctor, registered right now, in that country’s official register. Most countries let you check this yourself — and we link you to the page.

3

Cover for complications

Malpractice or complication insurance where the jurisdiction requires it.

Above the floor

Four tiers, and what separates them

We sort every credential a clinic holds into four tiers. The test isn’t how famous the logo is — it’s how much work someone did before issuing it.

The rule that defeats the commonest trick

Credentials are assessed per site and per specialty. A hospital group’s gold-tier cardiac accreditation says nothing about its dental unit — but the logo looks identical on both pages. The highest tier in one specialty never lifts another.

We also keep clinical quality and travel logistics separate. A credential that certifies coordination and continuity of care is genuinely valuable, and it can never stand in for a clinical one.

The glossary

What the common badges actually verify

Including the ones we think are overstated. Especially those.

JCI — Joint Commission InternationalGold

An on-site survey every three years, following real patients through real care pathways. It runs eight separate programmes — hospitals, but also ambulatory care, which covers dental clinics, cosmetic surgery centres and fertility clinics.

What it doesn’t tell you: whether your surgeon is any good. It assesses the organisation, not the individual. And “JCI Certification” is a different, much narrower product from “JCI Accreditation” — the words are not interchangeable.

ISO 9001Signal only

ISO 9001 certifies that an organisation documents a quality-management system and follows it, measured against objectives the organisation sets for itself. It contains no clinical requirements.

A clinic with ISO 9001 has good paperwork. That is honestly all you can conclude.

ISO 13485 / ISO 45001Not clinic credentials

13485 is a standard for companies that manufacture medical devices. 45001 is about staff workplace safety.

If a clinic displays these as evidence of care quality, that tells you something about the clinic.

ISO 15189Strong — labs only

This one is real. It assesses whether a laboratory is technically competent — proficiency testing, measurement traceability, validated methods. It applies only to the lab, and only within the specific tests it was accredited for.

TemosGold / Strong

A German accreditor built for medical travel, with separate programmes for medical, dental, eye and reproductive care. Its standards are independently accredited, including its dental standards — which makes it one of the few meaningful options for a dental clinic.

Note: Temos states it cannot award accreditation to organisations in EU countries for regulatory reasons. A Czech or Hungarian clinic claiming Temos is worth a second look.

Medical-travel journey certificationStrong — different axis

Certifies the journey — coordination, communication, continuity of care across borders. Genuinely useful, and completely separate from clinical quality.

A clinic certified this way will handle your trip well. It says nothing about the surgery.

ISHRS — hair restorationSignal only

There is no facility accreditation for hair restoration anywhere in the world. ISHRS is a paid membership organisation, not a certification body.

We’d rather tell you that than pretend the badge means more than it does. For hair transplants, judge the surgeon and the clinic’s regulatory standing — and ask who performs each step.

“Institutional member of…”Signal only

A paid membership category, not an accreditation. One major accreditor has 131 institutional members, and some of them present it as though it were the real thing.

ISQuaImpossible for a clinic

ISQua accredits accrediting bodies, not clinics. No clinic can hold ISQua accreditation.

If a clinic claims it, that is a misrepresentation — and our own application form now refuses to accept it.

Where you’re going

The one thing to check, by destination

Every country’s system is different. Here’s what actually matters in each of ours — and the trap to avoid. Tap a country to open it.

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Do it yourself

How to check any clinic in ten minutes

This works on any clinic, anywhere — including ones that have nothing to do with us.

  1. Get the legal entity name, not the brand. Ask directly: “What name is your licence issued under?” Brand-versus-entity mismatch is the single most common reason a real register search comes back empty — and an empty result looks identical to an unlicensed provider.
  2. Find the right register. We link to it from every clinic profile. In the UAE, confirm the emirate and whether the address sits in a healthcare free zone first — they use different registers.
  3. Check the doctor, not just the clinic. Usually a different register. In Korea, search in Korean — romanisation produces false negatives. In Brazil, check the specialty registration matches the specialty advertised.
  4. Check the expiry date. Expired credentials still sitting on websites are the most common defect there is, and the easiest to catch.
  5. Ask what each badge covers. Specifically: “Does this accreditation cover this site and this procedure?”
  6. Ask who performs each step. Not who supervises. Who holds the instrument, and who assists. Get the answer in writing.
The honest part

What we won’t do

  • We won’t show you a badge without telling you what it verifies. That’s the whole product.
  • We won’t claim our network is JCI-only. It isn’t, and it never was. JCI can accredit dental and cosmetic clinics through its ambulatory programme, but so few hold it that the claim would be false. We removed it everywhere it appeared.
  • We won’t rank clinics by JCI. In Japan, roughly a hundred times more hospitals hold the national accreditation than hold JCI. In Singapore, mandatory state licensing does the work voluntary accreditation does elsewhere. Ranking by JCI would mis-rank both.
  • We won’t publish country-level JCI counts. We can’t currently source them to JCI’s own register, and a number we can’t stand behind is worse than no number.
  • We’ll tell you when there’s nothing good to check. For hair restoration there is no facility accreditation anywhere in the world. We could put a logo on those pages and most people would read it as certification. We’re not going to.
  • We’ll show you what we couldn’t verify. Some of the credentials in our dataset have no public register at all — they can only be confirmed by asking the issuer directly. Where that’s the case, we say so rather than implying a check we didn’t make.