Medical tourists
70,000
to Costa Rica, yearly | Dental abroad
9.6M
US adults, ever | Implant savings
81%
Costa Rica vs. US |
On the Ground
Lakeland, Florida.
For years, Melissa Conord-Morrow lived with a sharp pain on the left side of her mouth. It got bad enough that she was choking on food she couldn’t chew.
“So it was really becoming a real health care issue,” she told Tampa’s ABC Action News back in 2019.
But Melissa runs a small business, and dental insurance was out of reach.
Local dentists wanted $20,000 to fix four teeth.
So she flew to Costa Rica.
It took two trips. The dental work, both sets of flights, and a bed and breakfast set up for dental patients came to $9,000 in total.
In other words, she kept $11,000 and got two trips to Central America thrown in.
She’s far from alone… about 70,000 people a year fly to Costa Rica for medical care, and roughly 83% of them are Americans. Dental work is 42% of that demand.
Those patients spend about $6,600 each per trip, while a regular tourist spends about $1,200.
Interesting…
Add it up and medical tourism brings Costa Rica about $465 million a year. That’s real money for a country of about five million people.
| Dental prices in San José vs. the US | Titanium implant
$850
US: $4,500 | | Crown
$750
US: $1,269 | | | All-on-4, per jaw
$9,500
US: $25,000 | | Root canal, molar
$360
US: $1,116 | | Costa Rica: Flikier Dental Institute list prices. US: typical cash prices, no insurance. Source: Medical Tourism Co., 2026. |
Most of the work happens in San José, the capital, about three hours by air from Miami. Clínica Bíblica has treated patients there since 1929, and it’s the largest private hospital in the country. It has held JCI accreditation since 2007.
That’s rarer than you’d think. By 2023, only 78 hospitals in all of Latin America held the seal.
Across town in Escazú, Hospital CIMA has earned the JCI gold seal six times in a row.
And the dental prices are hard to argue with. At Flikier Dental Institute in San José, a titanium implant runs $850 and a crown on top is $750. Back home, that implant alone runs about $4,500. Most dental plans won’t touch it either, so you pay the full price either way.
What about bigger surgery?
It’s coming.
A knee replacement package in San José starts at $15,250, with the surgeon, hospital stay and airport rides included. Without insurance, the same operation in the US runs $20,000 to $70,000.
One San José hospital went from about 180 international surgical patients in 2024 to about 300 in 2025. Will that keep climbing? I have no idea.
“I had zero pain. It was the best choice across the board. It was the best dental experience of my life.”
Melissa C., Lakeland, FL
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But one warning before you book.
Accreditation isn’t forever. In 2012, JCI pulled its seal from a major San José hospital, something that almost never happens. So check the JCI site yourself, the week you book.
Spread over three years, Melissa’s $9,000 works out to $250 a month. That’s less than a lot of car payments.
Not bad for two trips to the tropics.
Reader Review
Flikier Dental Institute, San José
Full upper restoration · Patient review · dentalinstitutecr.com
Geraldine Garcia had been missing teeth for 13 years. First came removable bridges, then a full upper denture that never felt steady when she ate or talked.
At 72, she assumed implants were off the table. Bone loss, she figured. Then she wrote to Flikier Dental Institute in San José and found out there was a way.
She left with new, fixed teeth in one day.
“I can now taste my food and talk and laugh like a normal person,” she wrote in her review.
The clinic is led by Dr. Simon Flikier, who trained at Boston University and has more than 20 years in practice. It runs its own in-house lab and 3D imaging, and it puts a lifetime warranty on implants and a seven-year warranty on crowns. Its team includes Dr. Ivan Navarro, an implant specialist with more than 30 years of practice. Its published price for All-on-4 is $9,500 per jaw, against about $25,000 in the US.
Geraldine G., 72
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Quick Reads
Destination
Penang Pulled In 285,400 Medical Tourists in Six Months
That’s the first half of 2026 alone, and those patients spent RM601.8 million. The Malaysian state says it handles more than a third of the country’s medical tourism. Most patients come from Indonesia, and a new Batam to Penang flight starts October 18. The count only covers hospitals, too, so dental clinics and labs would push it higher. For context, Penang saw 520,000 medical tourists and RM1.14 billion for all of 2025, so this year is right on pace. If Penang isn’t on your list, it should be.
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Trend
Colombia Is Up 17.6% This Year. Bogotá Leads, Not Medellín.
Between January and August, 21,034 foreigners came to Colombia for treatment, up 17.6% on last year. Most people picture Medellín. But Bogotá took 34.8% of patients and Cali took 28%, with Medellín third at 22.5%. The average trip runs a little over $3,200, care and hotel included. Cancer care, heart care, fertility and bariatric surgery top the list, along with the dental and cosmetic work Colombia is known for. And 2025 was already up 18.4% on the year before. Interesting…
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Savings Spotlight
9.6 Million Americans Have Already Gone Abroad for Dental Work
That’s about 4% of US adults, according to a 2026 CareQuest Institute report. Most of them, 58%, said the reason was simple: lower prices. And 69 million American adults have no dental insurance at all. Take a molar root canal. It runs about $1,116 cash in the US and $360 in San José. And the gap grows with every tooth. One more number: adults who had maxed out their dental benefits were almost three times as likely to go abroad, 7.6% versus 2.7%.
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Safety Note
Four Checks to Run Before You Book in Costa Rica
First, look your surgeon up with the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos, the country’s physician register. Second, ask the clinic for its Health Ministry operating permit, the Certificado de Habilitación. Then check any JCI claim on jointcommissioninternational.org. “International accreditation is what makes any of this legible to a patient,” says Massimo Manzi of the Costa Rican Chamber of Health. Last, get a written plan for follow-up care back home. CareQuest flags aftercare as one of the real risks of treatment abroad. Five minutes of checking. Worth every one.
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