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"Nowadays, more than 100.000 people travel to Hungary for dental care every year. There are a few reasons why dental tourism became so popular in Hungary over the years:

Lower prices of dental procedures made Hungary the number one choice for dental patients, which made Hungarian dental tourism a highly advanced field of medicine
Despite the lower prices, the quality of dental treatments is extremely high
The privatization of dental care in the 1990ies provided increased funding for clinics, raising them to the international standards of dentistry
Since Hungary became a member of the European Union, travelling to Hungary for European citizens is incredibly easy and cheap
Patients from EU member states can require tax refunds in their home country, further reducing the cost of the treatment
Given that Hungary is a very attractive travel destination, a lot of tourists combine their holiday with a cheap dental treatment."

https://www.bitcoinbazis.hu/english/contident-is-the-first-hungarian-dental-clinic-to-accept-bitcoin-and-altcoin-payments/

Is dental services so cheap in Budapest? Didn't know, btw there are really some countries where people go for that and also for hair transplant because these both service costs a lot in major countries. It's nice they accepted bitcoin, maybe a better payment way for international customers but still it will be interesting to see how much demand will be on that. You know we are happy because of bitcoin integration but sometimes it happens that this integration doesn't come with great results.

@shield132
Romania and Hungary are popular countries for medical tourism, dentists are reputed and many Europeans go there. Some dentists have tourists only lol. I know this clinic since I'm supposed to visit it in November. I know some people will laugh at me or think I'm cheap but bro, it costs too much

You choose:
- You do the treatment in your country and it takes you 2 years and +$6000 for something not big (I'm serious)
- You take the airplane for $150 3-4 times and do it for $2500 and they take care of everything (someone to translate, booking hotel, plane, etc is included)

You decide, I have chosen. What's going to happen to me? Dying from a plane crash, infection or something else?. That's good and I will be very very very happy because I will see my father again, so a shortcut is welcome

From what I know and have heard around me, people seem to choose Turkey for dental or medical treatments. It's interesting to see that countries such as Romania and Hungary also do well in that field according to you.

I am however too paranoid myself to visit a different country for dental or medical treatments. I want everything to be as close as possible in case something goes wrong and I have to go back.

I get it that these countries are much cheaper, but for me personally the peace of mind that a local clinic offers is worth more to me, and they have all the necessary licenses, which in some of the aforementioned countries is questionable.

I agree with @BitHodler, and it is much more reliable to use clinics from your own country because people can do better research on the clinic and doctors. Abroad has many barriers and one may think that everything will be cheap, but if something goes wrong it will be much more expensive. I can agree if the person tells me that they have no medical conditions in their country and on the recommendation of their country's doctors that person will need to travel abroad to be able to continue their treatment.

I agree with you, more or less, but I'd say it depends on what procedure you're getting done.  I'd have no problem whatsoever getting a cleaning or a tooth pulled in Budapest as long as I didn't get bad vibes from the dentist's office (or the dentist).  But I'd much rather get a major procedure done in my home country, in my home state, by a dentist with a good reputation that I can actually research easily.

However, this thread is about bitcoin, no?  I think it's very cool that some medical professionals are starting to accept bitcoin as payment.  Dental insurance is often very limited, so a lot of patients have to pay for things out of pocket and it makes sense that places like this would try to offer as many payment options as possible. 

What I'd like to see are veterinarians taking bitcoin (or any other crypto, maybe dogecoin heh heh).  Vets are expensive and are pretty much cash-only.  I don't think I've ever read of any of them who accept bitcoin or anything else.

Not only on hassle thing but also into the expense would be needed.For example on my case if tending to go on other countries just for dental treatment,with plane ticket alone I would spend big which would equivalent on 1 year of working so it isn't really that ideal for you to go with that option.You wont really have any choice but to stick as close as possible since you know your capacity when it comes to financial.For lots of money then they can do all they want which always the advantage.

It is a great attempt on dental industry right!

If there is some offers on using Bitcoin then it could be more interesting for the patience whoever reaching there clinic or hospital.

Along with Bitcoin day me accept some altcoins also to make the payment on their visit. Then is it legal to accept all the payments in Bitcoins in their country?

Interesting, I didn't knew about dental tourism in Hungary. It's amazing that people still can save money even after buying flight tickets and accommodation in the hotel.
I looked at prices in article, and I can say that dental care is even cheaper in my country. Strangely, I haven't heard about dental tourism in my country.
Accepting Bitcoins is another positive sign. I don't know how popular Bitcoin payment option will be, but it's always good to have an alternative. I would like to see same thing in my country, but probably it's not going to happen soon. Many dental clinics don't even accept card payments, so it's worth to expect that they will start accepting Bitcoins.

In my state, I never have seen a dental clinic to accept card payment. Probably I have missed but for a dental clinic, cash payment method is the best. Accepting bitcoin is a good characteristic but I guess no one will be interested to pay with bitcoin, unless it's Japan  :D

I believe that the reason for accepting "if they directly exchange BTC to USD" is the ease of doing transactions and attracting more countries, We are going to slowly to a unified world with one currency.
Many in my country are using therapeutic tourism to get better treatment, cheaper and better moods by visiting a new state.
Hungary's fame does not appear to be confined to the EU since many of those I know receive dental treatment in that country.

3 in 1, It’s a good deal.

Despite how slow and not so huge the current impact of the crypto currencies into the humans lives, the bitcoin still known to some people and continuously male it run into their lives. I never been heard something like this in my country. But this is indeed a good thing to be looking forward.

Wow! Another interesting and very lively activity in a certain country that involves the presence of crypto currency. Even how unstable crypto currencies really are, it keep on booming even little by little.

Strange to come across this now but I've also been considering what to do with the cost of dentist work where I am. My family member has some very dire work needed. We've checked and the costs are astronomical, we thought we would fly back next year to Asia but I've actually not much of a clue about quality there... it appears it's very different.

But is $2500 is for something not big, I'm still afraid of what it'll cost me for something really quite big. Not sure I'd part with my BTC just yet though.

I'm always very pleased to read such news about accepting Bitcoin. It's not very common for health related services to accept Bitcoin so that's why the news is even better. Still, this is just a tiny drop in the sea, Bitcoin is still more accepted on an individual than mass level. And the sad thing is that we are not doing enough to change that.

This is very common at me to hear that health companies will accept Bitcoin, just like I saw in gambling discussion. OP posted about a hospital that accepts bitcoin and they cure gambling addicts. We saw that bitcoin has had a massive adoption even everywhere and now we heard the news that the health organization company has been started now use bitcoin.

Hi everyone,
I am representing Contident, the formentioned dental clinic in Budapest, Hungary which accepts cryptocurrencies as a payment method.

I was just going through the comments here and I am a bit surprised that so many people have not heard about healthcare tourism / dental tourism yet in general.

 Hungary was the first Central-European country where foreign patients from the western world arrived for dental treatment 20 years ago.

 Nowadays, Budapest is one of the most popular dental destinations.

 If anyone here has any questions, I am happy to answer, do not hesitate!

not they are not just advance in dental medicine terms but also in cryptocurrency which is also good for the whole cryptocurrency to be more known and trusted.

there is no better international payment method, everything else is too slow and subject to conversion fees (Hungary has it's own national currency, although maybe these "tourism" clinics accept the Euro)



a license is no substitute for a good reputation or track record.

• got a license? you'll lose it, if you get investigated officially for doing sub-standard work
• got a good reputation? you'll lose it, if someone is dissatisfied with your sub-standard work

the situation is similar with both systems, both can be corrupted to trick people into thinking the business does a good job. the difference is that a licensing authority is easier to corrupt than reputation.


and what makes you think Hungary does not have a licensing system for dental practices anyway?

I've lived in Hungary for a while, and I also never knew people came to Hungary specifically to attend certain medical procedures, but it's actually very common. And while Hungary is not a very cheap country if you compare it to Turkey, Ukraine or Georgia, it's an EU-country with the EU quality of medical services and lower prices. I had an extreme situation with my tooth in a terrible condition and only eligible for the extraction, so I had to visit a dental clinic there. It cost me around 80 EUR, and everything was very smooth and professional.
It's good that now people can use cryptos to pay for such services.

Regardless of the field of activity, a smart leader must understand the prospects of its business development. If bitcoin of users becomes more and more so it has a sense to accept payment in Bitcoinm, it can be profitable. I applaud the dental clinic in Budapest for their step. I hope it will be success

The adaptation of cryptocurrency is widely spreading across all over the world and even professionals do accept cryptocurrency nowadays for their professional fees. At first, it was just being used in a restaurant or cafe but now it is starting to gain the attention of the professional worker.

I hope there would be a doctor who would accept a cryptocurrency in the future just like the dentist in Budapest.

Yes, more and more professional people are making themselves good into the cryptocurrency understanding the people's needs. If they're not into advancement it might lower the clinic's accessibility. This way more small networks and chained stores have begun to accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Same time there is also attacks on these medical systems, recently 400 dental clinic data was breached and ransom of $50000 was demanded. Both good and bad is there, and we need to go with the right ones.

What is the difference between accepting payment in Bitcoin and accepting cash? (From the taxing point of view)
If the bitcoin payment is done between wallets only (no exchange, payment processor, etc), it's private.
It's as private as the cash payment. From the tax point of view, both are invisible...

Hungarian doctors are moving usually to the western part of the EU to make a better living, because they are talented and doing their job fine. So it's possible that someone who lives in e.g. Germany would visit a doctor in Germany and will meet a Hungarian doctor (who speaks German of course) in the hospital...
So there's no main difference in the quality of the service, just because of the location of the doctor/clinic...

there will be more doctors that will accept crypto payments as there are already bunch of blockchain projects that are into healthcare industry. this is one big industry to explore via blockchain technology.
you can actually see healthcare websites that are accepting crypto already and a lot more -  -

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2784201.0  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2784201.0). (https://joinwell.io/)

https://mydoctorsf.com/bitcoin/

https://medicalchain.com

Great news and article you share mate, this news for sure bring to the people another inspiration how bitcoin or crypto are very popular and useful as mode of payment.
Imagine aince from the start of this there have a lot of of institutions and companies begin to accept bitcoin as mode of payment so this a sign the possible indication that bitcoin get back at 20k usd price.

This is one of the positive impacts of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is very popular and they are interested in accepting payments using crypto.

This dental clinic realizes that they have patients from different countries. So by paying using cryptocurrency it will be easier and they are also free of taxes.

This will definitely make the patient cost-effective. And should not only dental clinics that can accept crypto payments. Although in many countries there are already public services accepting crypto payments, but it should be developed again.

More and more companies are beginning to accept bitcoin as a payment method, because they understand that they can earn additional funds

Now that is a stepping stone to massive adoption in using Bitcoin for payments in dental clinics. By the way, Dentacoin is giving away tokens if they’re willing to adopt it for accepting payments from their patients. I was even thinking of spreading awareness to various dental clinics.

I have to fix my tooth soon, so when I go to the dentist, I will be sharing about Bitcoin as an alternative payment mode (also Dentacoin). We are still on the early stages of adoption despite Bitcoin is now over a decade old.

I love hearing news like this, so thank you!

Another good things that is happening in the crypto currency space, this is what the market needs, good impressions and remarks especially if there are known and powerful countries are involved. Maybe one day we could go visit Europe and stop by in Hungary to fix my teeth.

Wow, that's really great news. I am happy to read about every mention that any company has decided to accept bitcoins as payment. This means that the chances of using bitcoin as an international digital currency are growing every day.

More and more European cities accept bitcoin in different spheres. Most recently, I saw the news that the Croatian post accepts bitcoin. Now this news. This is a great trend. People are not afraid of change. That's cool.

This is news to me, I didn't know Hungary has become a major destination point for people to undergo dental surgery. I guess there are still many people who go to other places on the world where the service offered is of high quality and affordable than what is in Budapest. I hope bitcoin can be added to the mode of payment for medical care.

So far I did not expect that there are more than 100,000 tourists visiting Hungary only for dental care.. profitable business. Hopefully this becomes a trend, then spread and adopted by every dental clinic around the world.

Receiving dental treatment payments with Bitcoin, this will make it easier for patients who have Bitcoin to make payments.  This will also make the dental treatment center in Hungary better known to people around the world.  This also proves that Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency continue to show the existence of its development.  Evidently more and more institutions are using it, including this dental treatment center.  Hopefully this will be good news, and in the future Bitcoin is increasingly being used by the public.

You quoted some part of the article but there's no bitcoin related. It's just like a sort of introduction about Hungary and their cheap dental care. Though it's fine, but I still had to click the link to see the part about accepting bitcoin as a payment. But regardless of that, well it's a good thing that they're positive and open for cryptocurrency. It's a step for introducing bitcoin and altcoin to other people.

It's my first time to here such thing as medical tourism. Yeah! Some of our contrymen also go abroad to further cure their diseases but these diseases are usually the fatal ones like different types of cancer and they only go there mainly because of lack of technology here, but regularly travelling to other country just to have a brace (for example) which is not totally a main health issue was insane ;D. I don't think this was a good idea, I'm sure that you don't want to travel while your tooth aches, right? So hassle. Nonetheless, it was good for Hungary's tourism after all.

Good thing it is! This is actually the first time I heard that medical professionals accept bitcoin as a mode of payment. And with that, we could really say that bitcoin is now being widely used in all sorts of fields which also has a good effect on the crypto community—adaption, primarily. As time goes by, I hope that denal clinics will not be the only ones to accept crypto but also other fields of medicine like derma, vets, and the likes.

However, Budapest is very far from our country so if I will just go there for dental purposes only, then that would be impractical. I'd rather have my teeth checked here in our place because there are also good and reputed dentists here. But if I am travelling and Hungary is one of my travel destinations, then might as well have my teeth cleaned or whatever, as a bonus. ;D

Wonder why not using Dentacoin this is real use case.

And do you think paying in Bitcoin will help to avoid a data breach? How? Databases get hacked no matter what payment methods customers use, cryptos won't help at all. In this case, it's the currency that is "blockchainized" not the database containing all medical information.

the clinic's accessibility
Someone can't say he doesn't have access to a clinic because he pays with BTC. If he really needs health care services, he perfectly knows how to convert his bitcoins to fiats (and then pay the clinic) that's a dubious excuse to me


99% of the customers are Europeans, just to let you know we all use the same currency and we all use SEPA.
Who's taxes free? Surely not the professional.

Hungary has it's own currency still, although it's possible that businesses like that in the OP do accept the Euro anyway (often the case in the tourist industry, but the exchange rate is often not very competitive, expect to get a worse deal). Some non-Euro area banks have access to SEPA also, not sure about Hungarian banks though.

It good when you are hearing how different countries are accepting cryptocurrency from different part of the world, as bitcoin adoption is spreading, it is getting much more difficult for it to be stopped,, and since it cannot be stopped any longer, government would only want to regulate it now.

I am so much feeling that there would be a world summit soon on cryptocurrency and the discussion would on how they can regulate it because it would be difficult to discuss about banning it, thee ae so many countries right now, and powerful countries that have already implemented the use of crypto which they have not seen any negativity about it, so they will never agree to banning it but rather agree to  regulating it which would be the best decision for governments.

Excellent, now i would just need the airlines to accept bitcoin. Do they also pay their employees in bitcoin?

Hungary leads world's history as the country with the worst inflation ever (Pengo ftw), currently being challenged by my very own country, but still too many zeroes short. We only lost 5 zeroes in value over last year, still insignificant next to the great great Pengo.

Zimbabwe under mighty Mugabe could not defeat Hungary, Maduro will not either, his government will fall as well, as there is no Soviet Union backing. Putin doesn't count even tho he is getting lots of gold stolen from Venezuela (at the expense of the rainfall jungle) as protection money.

Whenever you need a reason for bitcoin, always remember the Pengo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_peng%C5%91).

The theory of living under hyperinflation, cannot compare to its misery. If you don't believe it, come and try to live here with wages of 1 USD a month... And yet, Hungary did worse. My hat off to them, i doubt any young people living there could even imagine it, but i hope history is never forgotten.

It's funny because I created that topic 3 and a half years ago:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1359031

In February 2016, I tried unsuccessfully to pay my Hungarian dentist with BTC. It was possible to pay with cash, card or bank wire, forints or euros.

Good to know it's possible, now. Besides, I was in Budapest this morning, I noticed the currency went up against the € since my last time there.

Hungarian banks are part of the SEPA area, so it's possible to wire transfer EUR to bank accounts (denominated in EUR) in Hungary (SEPA transfer means that the amount of the wire transfer is credited next business day to the receiver's bank account if both banks are in the SEPA area, while outside of the SEPA this is usually takes at least an additional day)
About exchange rate at the hospitals (or anywhere else where you want to pay with EUR instead of the national currency), it's usually worse compared to the exchange rate you can find at the official money-changer offices, and even in the banks.

The clinic made the right decision to do that, the competition is very stiff in that business and the clinic needs to target new clients if it becomes successful, other clinics will follow this practice of accepting payment with Cryptocurrency, the cryptocurrency is in good condition right now, they are not only making a profit, they are also making an investment.

funnily enough with the clinic's representative in this topic not a single question was asked about their services  :D
I guess not so many bitcoin dental tourists here
if I were to choose 6000$ in my country or 2500$ abroad , the choice would be obvious
thank god it is way cheaper here , probably beating Hungary in terms of prices too
what is good that more and more small and not so small businesses are starting to accept bitcoins
the process is slow , but I hope to live to see my groceries and a pub across the road accepting bitcoins ...

lol . i guess all users here are not really concerned about thier teeth but they were more concerned on the status of bitcoin  .

 kudos to this clinic for having the guts to accept and to promote bitcoin as well  .

this serves as an inspiration to other business minded people or company about setting bitcoin as one of thier payment methods   . 

It seems to me that the pace of development of the economies of Europe is very high and therefore Hungary does not keep pace with the leaders.  Nevertheless, they are already in a better world, compared with countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.  But regarding tourism with the idea, dental treatment is very good if there are really cheap services in Hungary.  It seems to me that in the same way you can attract people to the countries of the post-Soviet space, since their dental services are also cheap.

Funny you, we think deep a lot, I didn’t even actually notice that, now you see why I tell people that many people are here more in the cryptocurrency world because of the financial gain of it and not really because of its services, and this is why we are not really progressing more than this.

Everyone wants to talk about profit, talk about when bitcoin price will rise, talk about how much money they can make, but none of them ever talk of how bitcoin can really be used to solve some of the major financial problem that our banks has put us into, and how we can get more adoption, and this is the main purpose for which the bitcoin was created which there is need for us to embrace the more If we really want the cryptocurrency technology to survive and still exist in future.

That is interesting news, I dont see any obvious reason why they need btc payments if the dental tourism is high as it is and the prices are not very high. I would see more logic in the case when prices are very high to add BTC to get additional customers, but in any case good for them that they decided to do so.

Treating teeth is quite expensive, paying with bitcoins is a good way

I also agree with your opinion, that bitcoin will not change or will be able to add dental tourism, because tourism that has happened so far has been good and is going well. no need to add to payment with bitcoin anymore.

Wow! People who lives there are lucky then. In my country, dental services are really expensive and only premium healthcards covers. In terms of tourism, i don't think bitcoin would help coz not everyone is fond of it.

That’s it mate,yeah Hungary is the cheapest and best in regards to dental practice there’s no doubt about it but using bitcoin to pay for the service?no of course I won’t do that

And besides dental and medical expenses are part of budgeting there’s allotted money for those so if I were to fly to Hungary from Asia(things that I sure won’t happen)atleast I will use my Fiat to pay for Thant and bitcoin will remain to my wallet.

We invested in crypto for future and dental health wasn’t part of emergency expenses that can be used by my bitcoin

It's great to know that Hungary is good for oral treatment. It's also good know they offering bitcoin for payment. In many country and many company already choose bitcoin as a currency. This is really great news for crypto currency. Hope other crypto currency also get their goal asap. It's just a matter of time when crypto will dominion the whole world.

I don't know about hungarian economical way and hospitalities of their, but it’s definitely good news for general bitcoin holders and users.

Never knew this about this beautiful European country, I thought it was only famous for Nokia phone production in the early days of Nokia phones. It's good bitcoin is been accepted by dental clinics, it will further expose bitcoin to people and change their orientation about the bitcoin as against as it has been wrongly painted by the banks and mainstream media.

I was amazed at what you call "dental tourism." Haven't heard of it before. Hungary must have the best dentists and the latest dental technologies in the world.

Anyway, the ocean is made up of tiny drops. A single dental clinic here, a small coffee shop there, a little hotel somewhere else; all these will make an ocean of businesses that accept Bitcoin. And that is how Bitcoin will conquer the world. If it is hard to get the nod up there, it will build up strength at the bottom and little by little it will become unstoppable.

This is smart management. If you use crypto in addition to traditional payment methods, you can make your organization (in our case the dental clinic) special, which will attract the attention of new, rich clients and this will help to popularize Bitcoin.

Is there any information about some different clinics that accept payment in Bitcoin? It is very interesting to see how many medical institutions interact with crypto.

I do not know much about dental treatment in Hungry but if it really starts accepting Bitcoin as payment method then indeed its a good news. Medical institutions or clinics generally do not accept crypto anywhere and country like Hungry where dental treatment is popular throughout Europe is surely a good news to share. I hope Hungarian govt does not ban it, if it goes like this, Bitcoin may be an acceptable currency at many retail points there.

I wish that in my dentistry it would be possible to pay for services with bitcoin  :-\

dentcoin main agenda is to add more dental clinic to dentcoin payment adopition soon most of denatl clincs around world will come forward to accept crypto currencies as main mode of currency

Of course, I agree that there are a lot of projects on the cryptocurrency market related to medicine and all these projects are realizing their plans for using cryptocurrency in real for medical purposes.  But when it comes to paying for services in medical institutions, we must understand that the circle of people who can use such services is very small.  The fact is that the cryptocurrency user community is still very small.

Hi,

not far as know, at least not in HU. However I do think, their pilot project will lead to more clinics to accept cryptos, locally. First of all, is a great marketing to them, and secondly, as time goes on, and more and more wealth created trough cryptos, the demand to use them directly, without the need to change to fiat, will grow.

Well, if Bakkt and the other ETF craps doesn't spoil it :D.

Recently, information was published that Solve.Care, a blockchain-based medical services platform, will use Uber Health services, and payment will be made using cryptocurrency, including through a Care Wallet service.