Under the new Visa for Medical Stay system, foreign patients can receive renewable, multiple-entry six-month visas, compared with single entry, 90-day visas previously available. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said, "My feeling is that barriers between nations have to be low in the field of medicine." The Japanese government seeks to promote advanced medical treatment and health checks to wealthy individuals and their families, particularly from China and other Asian nations. Previously, Japan's stringent immigration rules discouraged foreigners from choosing Japanese hospitals for healthcare. The 90-day visa was too short for many patients. It did not allow multiple entries and did not grant any special visit status for family members wanting to accompany patients during their stay in hospital. The new visa is only on a one-year trial basis.

Japanese embassies have begun a campaign to promote the new programme. Hospitals in Japan are high quality but expensive, with some seeking to encourage a flow of wealthy travellers seeking medical treatment, as it improves their strapped cash resources. Last April Nippon Travel Agency Co. started to offer medical tours for wealthy Chinese tourists interested in PET scans. JTB Corporation launched a medical and health services centre in April that offers medical-related support services and medical tourism packages.

Raffles Medical Group (RMG) will open in an area being developed near JR Osaka Station. The Singaporean medical group's inroads into Japan could help grow the local medical tourism market, as unlike local hospitals, it has medical tourism experience gained in other countries. Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, developers of 24-hectare redevelopment area Umeda North Yard, Osaka Station, invited RMG and hopes to have outline agreement by the end of March. RMG plans to open an outpatient clinic staffed by Japanese doctors fluent in foreign languages. The clinic will target foreign residents, their family members and wealthy medical tourists from China and Russia. The group also plans to offer treatment at RMG's affiliated hospitals in their home countries or at hospitals in Singapore. The next step for RMG is to establish a general hospital in Japan – but to do this is has to convince the Japanese government to ease regulations so foreign doctors can examine patients in Japan. The group operates clinics and hospitals in Singapore as well as general hospitals in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It has treated more than 1 million patients in Singapore, one-third of whom are mostly the many foreign residents of Singapore, and a small but increasing number of medical tourists to Singapore.

The Development Bank of Japan has estimated potential demand for medical tourism in Japan at 430,000 medical tourists by 2020.