Navan or TravelPerk for patient travel?

Published 2026-09-15

Navan (formerly TripActions) and TravelPerk are the newer corporate travel platforms, built with a consumer-grade booking experience and, in Navan's case, a card and expense product alongside. Both handle non-employees through an emailed guest invitation rather than an arranger typing a profile, which is a better fit for a patient than the older model. This guide sets out what each does for a guest, from their own documentation, and what a program still owns.

How each handles a guest

Navan's guest travel lets a user who books guest travel create an invitation for a non-employee by entering basic contact details, date of birth, address and trip purpose; the guest then books their own arrangements while following the company's travel policy, and Navan describes the model as removing the need for reimbursements or expense reports on the guest's side. Its published examples are interview candidates, new hires, interns, clients and contract workers.

TravelPerk gives guests a profile of their own: they can be invited by email, they can book trips for themselves only, and they cannot see company information or other travelers. Registered users of any role except guest can book on behalf of someone who has a profile on the company account; for someone with no profile, the company creates a guest profile first.

Navan: invite by email; guest books inside company policy; paid centrally
TravelPerk: guest profile invited by email; books for self only; sees nothing else
Both designed for candidates, contractors, new hires and clients

Why the invitation model is closer to right

A patient booking their own room from a link, on a phone, without a login they have to remember, is the shape a treatment program actually wants. Navan and TravelPerk get partway there: the guest receives an email, follows it, and books. What the invitation cannot change is what the guest sees when they arrive. The search is the company's hotel program, ranked for a business traveler; the policy that constrains it was written for employees; and the confirmations and reminders arrive from the platform.

Right: a link, a phone, no corporate login
Not right: a business search, an employee policy, platform-branded messages

The patient parts that stay with the program

Site proximity: neither platform ranks hotels by distance to a treatment center; a coordinator checks it or the patient guesses. Communication: the patient hears from Navan or TravelPerk, not from the program, so the front-desk script and the "what to expect the morning of" note are the coordinator's email. Family-paid trips: both models are built around central company payment, which is exactly what a guest does not want when the family is paying its own way. The record: a guest trip on a company travel report, which a finance team can read and a clinic will have to reshape into patients, sites and stays.

Distance to the site: checked by hand
Patient messages: written by hand
Family-paid trips: outside the central-payment model
The record: a travel report, reshaped by hand

When one of these is the right answer

An organization that already runs Navan or TravelPerk, pays for its patients' trips, and handles a modest number of them can use the guest invitation with less arranger effort than Egencia or Concur require. If the patient experience being the platform's rather than the program's is acceptable, it is a reasonable choice.

Already licensed, organization-paid, modest volume, platform-branded trip acceptable

When it is not

Self-paying patients, many sites, or a program that wants the patient to feel the trip is the program's are the same three cases as for every corporate tool, and the category page compares the alternatives. A patient-travel platform starts from the invitation model these two get right and adds the site, the program's name and the patient-shaped record.

Self-paying patients, scattered sites, or a program-branded trip

Common questions

Can a guest pay with their own card in Navan or TravelPerk?

Both are built around the company paying centrally so the guest never files for reimbursement. A trip on the guest's own card is not the intended path; check the current documentation for your plan, and treat family-paid travel as the case that decides the tool.

Which is better for patient travel, Navan or TravelPerk?

For a guest trip they are close: both invite by email and let the guest book inside policy. The differences that matter to a program are not between them; they are between any corporate tool and a platform built for the patient trip.

Is a guest invitation a HIPAA question?

A guest invitation holds a name, contact details and travel dates, and Navan's asks for date of birth and trip purpose. Whether that is protected health information in your context is a question for your compliance officer, and the BAA guide sets out what to ask.