Before you pay anyone to arrange treatment abroad: 13 questions for Kenyan patients

Checked 11 September 2026.

You do not need to be an expert to check someone — you need a short list of questions, asked out loud, with the answers in writing: a message, an email, a signed and stamped letter, anything you can show later.

Some of these questions have a published official answer. Where they do, we quote it and link to the page we read it on. The rest are answered on no official page we could find — what a company's refund terms are, or which patients it has sent before. Ask those anyway, and judge the answer.

(Full guidance on how to use a checklist like this is on our companion page for patients going to India — the method is the same; what differs below is Kenyan law, not the method.)

This page is about paperwork and money. It gives no medical advice and it does not tell you where to go.

First, two things you can check yourself, for free

Both take a few minutes and cost nothing.

A. The register of doctors and health facilities. The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council publishes searchable registers at https://registers.kmpdc.go.ke/ — licensed local practitioners, foreign practitioners, and licensed health facilities, public and private (read 11 September 2026).

This is not a small thing. The referral forms for treatment abroad contain a section where the Council's Chief Executive Officer certifies that your doctor "is registered under Registration Number…, validly Licensed under current Practice License No:… and is of good standing" (source). You can look up that registration and licence yourself before you get that far.

⚠ KMPDC states plainly: "Pharmacists, nurses, clinical officers are not registered by the Council" (source). So not finding someone in this register does not always mean they are not qualified — it may mean they are regulated by a different body. Ask which one.

B. SHA's published list of hospitals abroad it has contracted. SHA publishes it as a PDF (source, read 11 September 2026). SHA's own note says it is "an initial list and not an exhaustive list as the contracting process is an ongoing process". So a hospital that is not on it may still be contracted later — which is exactly why you should ask SHA rather than assume either way.

About the money

1. "Exactly what am I paying you for, item by item, in writing?"

Ask for a written, itemised list before any money moves. Then look at each line and ask which office actually receives it.

Some of the steps on this journey are done by government bodies — SHA, KMPDC, the Ministry of Health. If a line on the invoice is for one of those steps, ask what the official fee is and who it is paid to.

2. "Has SHA approved my referral yet, and can I see the approval?"

Regulation 39(5) says that only "where the Authority approves the request" does SHA undertake to pay (source).

The SHA form has a section — Part D — "To be filled in by the SHA DIRECTOR", which reads: "Approval is hereby given for … who has been referred by Dr … to travel abroad for medical/dental management in … (country)" (source).

So there is a named official and a signed line. Ask to see it. Approval is a document, not a reassurance.

3. "How much of this will SHA actually pay, and how much is mine?"

SHA publishes the Overseas Treatment Package with "Limit: KES. 500,000 per person per annum" (source, read 11 September 2026).

Be careful with that number, in both directions. It is a ceiling on what the Authority pays, not an estimate of what anything costs. And the amount is published by SHA rather than written into the text of the Regulations, so it can change. Confirm the current figure with SHA in writing.

Then ask the person in front of you for a single sheet: total expected cost, minus what SHA is expected to pay, equals what you pay. If they will not put that on paper, you do not have a price.

4. "Is this treatment cost the hospital's own written quotation?"

Ask for the hospital's own written estimate, on the hospital's letterhead, with a date — not a number from a company website. We do not publish treatment prices on this site because we have not verified any. See question 4 on our companion page for the full reasoning; it applies here unchanged.

5. "Who else pays you, and how much?"

Ask whether the hospital pays them, and how much, and how they earn if the answer is "no". If nobody will tell you how, you do not know whose side they are on. Same question, same reasoning, as question 3 on our companion page.

6. "Where does my money go, and what comes back if the referral is refused?"

Ask for a bank or mobile-money account in a company name, not a personal name. Ask for a receipt. Ask in writing what is refunded if SHA does not approve, and what is refunded if the visa is refused — for the actual e-Medical Visa fee, documents and process, so you know what a real refusal or a real fee looks like before you agree to anything.

About the referral itself

For how the SHA referral is actually supposed to work — Regulation 39, both forms, and who signs each one — see our companion page; the questions below assume you have read it.

7. "Which hospital's name will be written on my referral, and what is its SHA Healthcare Provider Number?"

This is the most important question on this page.

Regulation 39(1)(c) allows treatment outside Kenya only where it "is being provided by a healthcare provider or health facility contracted by the Authority". Regulation 39(3)(a) says the referral must contain "the name of the receiving healthcare provider or health facility" (source).

And the SHA form has a field for the receiving facility's "SHA Healthcare Provider Number" (source).

So whoever fills in that line has chosen your hospital. Ask which hospital, before the form is filled, not after. Ask for the number. Then take the number and the name to SHA and ask them to confirm it.

8. "Who is signing Part C, and who is signing Part D?"

There are two forms with two different final approvers, and this catches people out.

• The SHA Referral for Overseas Treatment Form ends at Part D — the SHA Director.
• The KMPDC Referral Form for Medical Management Abroad, made under the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act (Cap. 253), ends at Part D — the Director of Medical Services, under the "Official Stamp of the Ministry of Health" (source).

On both forms, Part C is signed by the Chief Executive Officer of KMPDC under the Council's own stamp.

Regulation 39(2) requires both a referral submitted online to SHA and "a duly filled referral form prescribed under the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act (Cap. 253)".

Ask: which of these has been done, which is outstanding, and who has physically signed what. Ask to see the stamps.

9. "Is my treatment on SHA's list of interventions not readily available in Kenya — and if not, what happens?"

SHA and the Benefits Package and Tariffs Advisory Panel publish a list of 36 interventions they treat as not readily available in Kenya (source, read 11 September 2026), with the note "This is an initial list."

Regulation 39(1)(b) allows overseas treatment only where the "treatment sought is not available in Kenya", and regulation 39(4)(a) puts the confirmation of that in the hands of SHA's Claims Management Office.

This is a money question, not a medical one. Do not use the list to decide what care to seek — that is between you and your doctor. Use it to find out, in advance and in writing, whether SHA is likely to pay.

10. "What is the plan for when I come home?"

The SHA form asks the referring practitioner for a "plan for review and follow-up upon return of the patient to the country" (source).

Regulation 36(1)(b) goes further: an overseas facility is contracted where it is "linked to an empaneled and contracted health facility in Kenya that will follow up on the treatment and management of a beneficiary upon his or her return to Kenya" (source).

The rules assume you are coming home. If nobody has discussed with you which Kenyan facility will look after you afterwards, a required part of the arrangement is missing. Ask for its name.

11. "Which version of the requirements are you working from?"

The Ministry of Health's page "Getting Treatment Abroad" still lists an "NHIF Form" (source, read 11 September 2026). NHIF no longer exists; SHA's own notices call it the "defunct National Health Insurance Fund" (source).

If the person advising you is still saying NHIF, they are reading a page that has not been updated. That is not proof of bad intent. It is proof that you need to check what they tell you against the Regulations.

About them

12. "What is your company's legal name, physical address and registration number?"

Then check it — a company that will not tell you its own registered name is telling you something. Kenya-specific step, not on our companion page: if the person is a doctor, look them up at https://registers.kmpdc.go.ke/. If they say they are a health facility, look that up there too (see "First, two things you can check yourself" above).

13. "Can I speak to two patients you sent last year?"

Same question, same reasoning, as question 14 on our companion page: a phone number of a real person beats a testimonial on a website.

If something has already gone wrong

These are published channels. We are quoting them, not adding to them.

KMPDC complaints. KMPDC lists what you can complain about, and the list includes "Overcharging", "Referral/Transfer without proper instruction", "Unprofessional/Unethical Conduct", "Failure to treat" and "Undertaking a procedure without informed consent" (source, read 11 September 2026).

You may complain against medical practitioners, dental practitioners and health institutions. Complaints go in writing to the Chief Executive Officer of the Council:

• E-mail legal@kmpdc.go.ke
• Post: Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council, P.O. Box 44839–00100, Nairobi
• Hand delivery: 2nd Floor Legal Department, Woodlands Rd, Off Lenana Road, Hurlingham, Nairobi

KMPDC describes its own process: the complaint is forwarded to the practitioner or institution within five working days to respond; the complaint and the response are "tabled before the Disciplinary & Ethics Committee for discussion in their next scheduled meeting"; and "the decision of the Preliminary Inquiry Committee shall be communicated to you in writing within thirty (30) days". KMPDC also warns that "investigation of a complaint can be a lengthy process" (source).

For referrals abroad specifically, KMPDC prints a dedicated address on its referral form: patient.referrals@kmpdc.go.ke (source).

SHA — toll free 0800 720 601, SHA Building, Community Area, Ragati Road, P.O. Box 30443–00100, Nairobi (source).

Keep every receipt, message and screenshot. They are your evidence.

If you have already paid someone and are now worried: that is not a judgement on you. These processes are hard to follow, the Ministry's own page is out of date, and the two forms are not identical. Start by writing down what you paid, to whom, and for what, and asking for the documents named above.

Now ask us the same questions

It would be dishonest to hand you a checklist and then avoid it. On how we earn, whether we charge patients, and what we don't yet know, our answers are the same on both pages — see "Now ask us the same questions" on our companion page. Specific to this page:

• How many providers are listed? None. We have not verified a single hospital, so we list none and name none of our own. Where this site reproduces hospital names, they are the Kenyan government's published list, not ours.
• Can we influence an SHA or KMPDC decision? No. Nobody outside those bodies can.

If we ever stop being able to answer these questions this plainly, stop trusting this page.

This is general information about process and paperwork, not medical advice. Infirmy does not diagnose, recommend a treatment, or tell anyone what care to seek.