Is it possible to get Medical Visa to visit a 4 to 5 months Therapy in Thailand?

[Thaidude]

I plan to visit a CBT specialist(clinical psychologist) in Bangkok for which I have to stay around 4 to 5 months. Is it possible to get a medical visa for the same at this point of time? 

[steve187]

i would contact the hospital, lots of hoops to jump through, my son works for Bangkok hospital Bangkok, drumming up customers from outside Thailand, and he says its nearly impossible

[ubonjoe]

At this time all visa for medical treatment issued by embassies and consulates are non-o visas that allow a 90 day stay. That 90 day entry can be extended for up 90 days at immigration if the supporting documents from a doctor and hospital justify it.

[BritTim]

In theory, you can get a 90-day Non Immigrant visa to enter Thailand for medical treatment (plus, of course, lots of other hoops at the current time). The 90-day permission to stay is theoretically extendable. As stated by Steve, it is difficult in practice.

[DrJack54]

4 minutes ago, BritTim said:

In theory, you can get a 90-day Non Immigrant visa to enter Thailand for medical treatment

Doesn't the medical treatment have to be not available in your own country to meet one of the many criteria?

[mrwebb8825]

Can I get a yearly NON-O medical to receive a weekly soapy from a part time uni student to relieve mental stress and tension in the groin area? These are not offered in my home country. 

 

Are there seriously actual, official medical therapies offered here but nowhere else? I know there are treatments offered here that are considerably cheaper. Sorry for the sidebar hijack. Just curious how a 3rd world country has scientific breakthroughs that st world countries do not.

[FlyingThai]

18 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Doesn't the medical treatment have to be not available in your own country to meet one of the many criteria?

Not as far as I understand it. Based on what I was told it's sufficient to justify why the procedure should be performed in Thailand and one can get creative here. After all the embassy staff / MFA are bureaucrats and not medical staff.

 

Otherwise this particular application option wouldn't exist, let alone the numbers that TAT is targeting according to the last numbers they released. Pretty much any country in the world has some butcher shop hospital where a surgery can be performed so that would render any request void.

 

Stating on the application that "BNH Hospital is specialized in the treatment and I consulted with Dr. xyz that the procedure be performed as per the letter attached." should be sufficient as long as the hospital issues a letter of support. If the hospital will vouch for more simple treatments and procedures under this visa regime is a different matter.

[Sheryl]

18 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Doesn't the medical treatment have to be not available in your own country to meet one of the many criteria?

 

 Not anymore but the procedure for getting a medical visa and COE is poorly defined and extremely complex and few have so far managed it.

 

In addition it would be prohibitively expensive as OP would have to be quarantined in a hospital, as an inopatient,  for at least 14 days. Even if the psychologist in question is based in a hospital (which is likely not the case), the hospital is unlikely to be keen on the idea of admitting someone who will just be getting therapy usually done as an outpatient.

 

OP I think this idea is a non-starter.

[Sheryl]

32 minutes ago, mrwebb8825 said:

Are there seriously actual, official medical therapies offered here but nowhere else? I know there are treatments offered here that are considerably cheaper. Sorry for the sidebar hijack. Just curious how a 3rd world country has scientific breakthroughs that st world countries do not.

 

They do not. But many of the medical tourists come form other countries in the region (Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal etc) whose health systems are much less developed. And a huge number come form Middle Eastern countries whose own medical facilities are also limited, and whose governments pay for treatmenbt abroad.

[Max69xl]

19 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

Doesn't the medical treatment have to be not available in your own country to meet one of the many criteria?

Or very expensive in your own country. 

[roadpeople]

An alternative is to consider the new 9 months (3x3) Longstay visa path, very likely to be introduced in Oct.

 

  Tourists able to stay in Thailand for up to nine months under planned new ‘Longstay’ entry visa. Thai Examiner: August 31, 2020

[jackdd]

3 minutes ago, roadpeople said:

An alternative is to consider the new 9 months (3x3) Longstay visa path, very likely to be introduced in Oct.

 

  Tourists able to stay in Thailand for up to nine months under planned new ‘Longstay’ entry visa. Thai Examiner: August 31, 2020

Very likely to be introduced in October? 555

They are just making stuff up, most likely we will never hear about this idea again.

It would also be way easier to just remove the 50 year age minimum of the retirement visa, than introducing something new.

[Ben Robert]

11 hours ago, jackdd said:

Very likely to be introduced in October? 555

They are just making stuff up, most likely we will never hear about this idea again.

It would also be way easier to just remove the 50 year age minimum of the retirement visa, than introducing something new.

 

12 hours ago, Sheryl said:

 

 Not anymore but the procedure for getting a medical visa and COE is poorly defined and extremely complex and few have so far managed it.

 

In addition it would be prohibitively expensive as OP would have to be quarantined in a hospital, as an inopatient,  for at least 14 days. Even if the psychologist in question is based in a hospital (which is likely not the case), the hospital is unlikely to be keen on the idea of admitting someone who will just be getting therapy usually done as an outpatient.

 

OP I think this idea is a non-starter.

I just get all the forms from Bumurand Hospital, chest fill the forms out and go to Thai Embassy to here in Austria. First you have to write to Hospital, when you want to come to the Hospital after to Thai Embassy and you get the visa which you want {I only ask for Hernia-operation} it works .......

[oompie69]

And after jumping through all the hoops there's the small problem of getting a flight to Thailand. 

I don't even want to think about how much additional stress that will add to the exercise.

Without wanting to make light of  the O P'S health issue, I would have serious mental problems by the time I enter Thailand just from the stress of co-ordinating and successfully completing all that is needed before I am able to board a flight to Thailand.

 

[BritTim]

On 8/30/2020 at 3:46 PM, DrJack54 said:

Doesn't the medical treatment have to be not available in your own country to meet one of the many criteria?

Not necessarily. This is not the same as medical evacuation. The Thai government, in a rare case of logical thinking, has figured out that hospitals are capable of safely quarantining those arriving from overseas. Further, many of the expensive hospitals in Thailand are very reliant on overseas customers to survive. If you are willing to pay the hospital for your treatment (available or not in home country) and also for the 14-night quarantine in the hospital, it is possible in principle. That said, you chances of success are way higher in countries close to Thailand, or from the Middle East (the main sources of medical tourism in the past) than applying in the West.

[fleur3]

On 8/30/2020 at 10:35 AM, ubonjoe said:

At this time all visa for medical treatment issued by embassies and consulates are non-o visas that allow a 90 day stay. That 90 day entry can be extended for up 90 days at immigration if the supporting documents from a doctor and hospital justify it.

i have tried to do it. But the requirement is a letter of a hospital in your country stating that the medical treatment is NOT possible in your country AND that it is urgent. If you live in a western country i am afraid you can not get such a letter !