The questions people actually ask, answered without the sales voice.

We coordinate. LukeBridge is a cross-border coordination and medical-travel assistance company registered in Shanghai, China. We check your records for administrative completeness, coordinate their translation, submit them to hospital international departments, chase written answers, and then run the logistics: appointments, admission, payment routing, interpreting, and the handover back to your own doctors. We are not a hospital, clinic, or medical practice, and we do not diagnose or treat.

The pathway matters. Several CAR-T products are approved by China's NMPA for specific indications and are sold commercially. Separately, hospitals run registered clinical research under the 818 rules. Since 1 May 2026, those studies may not charge participants any research-related fee: no “investigational” package and no cost recovery. We do not sell, reserve, or broker research places. The hospital decides in writing which pathway applies to you. If a hospital offers you a study, it will do so directly and free of charge; if anyone quotes you a price for a research slot, ask for the approval that allows them to charge, and walk away if there is not one.

Patients from New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada with relapsed or refractory blood cancers, where the funded options at home are exhausted or unavailable. What public funding covers differs sharply: CAR-T is publicly funded for eligible patients in Australia and the UK, insurer-dependent in the US, and publicly funded in several Canadian provinces under strict eligibility, with coverage and wait times that vary by province. New Zealand has no publicly funded CAR-T pathway. Establishing what is actually available to you at home is the first thing we do.

Under the PRC Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), with the mandatory privacy rights of your home country preserved where they cannot be excluded. Health information is sensitive personal information under PIPL: we ask for your separate, explicit consent (Article 29) and a separate consent to store it outside mainland China (Article 39). Records go to a hospital only after a second, hospital-specific consent that names the hospital. Our privacy notice sets out every transfer, retention period, and complaint route.

No. LukeBridge is not a hospital, clinic, or medical practice. We do not employ physicians to treat patients, and we do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or prescriptions. Every clinical decision — eligibility, product choice, dosing, and fitness to travel — is made and signed by the licensed physicians at the hospital that accepts you. If you need medical advice, speak to a licensed clinician in your country.

LukeBridge is registered in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. Our services are governed by PRC law, and any dispute is handled as described in our terms — with the mandatory consumer-protection rights of your home country preserved where they cannot be excluded. Our registered particulars — legal name, Unified Social Credit Code, registered address, telephone, and responsible person — are published in the footer of every page. If you cannot see them, do not pay us: email us and we will send the business licence and a signed service agreement first.

We are not an emergency service and cannot provide urgent care. If you are unwell now, call your local emergency number — 111 in New Zealand, 000 in Australia, 999 in the UK, 911 in the US or Canada, 120 in China — or go to the nearest emergency department. Never delay urgent care in order to pursue an enquiry about treatment abroad.

No. The pre-screen is free and takes about ten minutes. If the case looks plausible we offer a written records review for US$350. That fee is credited against the coordination fee if you go ahead, and refunded in full if no hospital will offer you a pathway.

Yes, and some patients do. Chinese hospitals accept direct enquiries from international patients. Going direct works when you have a Chinese-speaking family member, a straightforward case, and patience for the paperwork. A coordinator earns the fee when records need translating, several hospitals need comparing, or you need a written opinion before you commit. Our free pre-screen tells you which situation you are in — and if you do not need us, we will say so.

We ask for your records with your consent, and we encourage you to share the hospital's written opinion with your treating team at home. They remain your team. We do not replace them, and we never ask you to stop or delay any treatment they have recommended.

An administrative review, not a clinical opinion. A records screener — not a physician — compares your file with each hospital's published intake and eligibility criteria, records what appears complete or missing, and sets out up to two hospital options with an indicative cost and timeline. Where possible we also obtain the hospital's own written position. It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, a second opinion, or a guarantee of acceptance. It is delivered within five business days of receiving complete records.

You get the review fee back in full, and a written explanation of why. We would rather refund than push a case that has no pathway.

The fixed fee (US$15,000–30,000 depending on scope) covers case management, hospital liaison, record preparation and translation coordination, appointment and admission scheduling, an interpreter for key consultations, payment-route support, and the English discharge summary with handover. It does not cover medical fees, flights, accommodation, visas, insurance, or travel bookings. We do not sell or package travel; we refer you to licensed travel agencies and help you understand the hospital's invitation-letter requirements.

No. We are paid only by patients, at a published fixed fee, in milestones. We do not accept per-patient referral payments from hospitals, and if a hospital offers one we decline it in writing.

No. A referral code is attribution only: we do not pay cash, discounts, gifts, or any other benefit to former patients or clinicians who share one. Medical professionals should not accept anything of value for referring a patient, and we will not offer it. If we ever introduce a patient-community programme with a benefit, we will disclose it before you rely on it, in line with the FTC Endorsement Guides and local medical-professional rules.

Pre-screen within two business days. Records review within five business days of complete records. Hospital opinion usually one to two weeks after that. If accepted, travel is typically four to six weeks later, depending on visa timing, treatment slot, and your fitness to fly. Nothing about this is fast, and any provider who says otherwise is selling.

That is a clinical decision, not a logistics one. Your treating team decides whether you are fit to fly; the airline and the hospital may both require documentation. We coordinate the paperwork, but we do not clear you for travel.

China does not have a general “medical visa” category. For most patients the route is an S2 short-stay private-visit visa with an invitation from the hospital or an approved inviter, or an L tourist visa. A CAR-T stay is usually six to eight weeks and may need extending: extensions are applied for at the local exit-entry administration before the permitted stay expires. Entering for the wrong purpose or overstaying can lead to fines, detention, or a re-entry ban. We set out the route for your passport, the invitation documents, and the extension plan in writing before you commit; the visa decision belongs to the consulate.

Usually not in the way people hope. Standard travel policies exclude travel undertaken to receive treatment, and specialist cover for treatment-abroad complications is rare and expensive. We give you a written checklist of what to ask insurers and tell you what we know about available products, but we cannot guarantee that cover exists for your treatment. If it does not, complications, an extended ICU stay, and repatriation are your cost. Plan a 20–30% buffer and do not treat a standard policy as cover.

Because eligibility is hospital-specific, and a hospital's published criteria are not a decision about your case. We do publish the criteria we use to shortlist hospitals: NHC registration and tertiary-hospital status, NMPA product approval or NHC technology approval for the pathway, written eligibility criteria and a written cost estimate, international-patient capability, and no per-patient payment to us. We verify those against public registers and the hospital's own documents. The written review names up to two hospitals. If you want a name before paying, ask us and we will tell you whether we can name one for your case without a review.

Your statutory rights depend on where you live. UK consumers have a 14-day right to cancel a distance contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. Australian consumers have non-excludable guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law. New Zealand consumers have Consumer Guarantees Act rights. Canadian and US consumers keep the rights their provincial and state law gives them, and we do not exclude liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. Our terms include a country-by-country schedule. Email us to cancel; we confirm in writing and refund within 14 days where the statutory right applies.

Our focus is CAR-T and adjacent cell therapies for blood cancers, because that is where the cost gap and the published case volume are. Other enquiries are answered case by case, and we will tell you if we are the wrong provider.