๐ป๐ณ Ho Chi Minh City ยท Healthcare
Doctors, insurance and emergencies in Ho Chi Minh City
Cheap and competent for everyday problems, expensive at the international clinics, and genuinely worth insuring for evacuation if something serious happens.
The thing people get wrongThe standard advice from long-term residents is not about routine care โ it is that any serious or complex case gets flown to Bangkok or Singapore. Check that your policy actually includes medical evacuation and repatriation, because a plan that covers only local treatment misses the point of insuring here.
Indicative figures
- Ambulance115Private hospital ambulances are often faster.
- Local private consultationVND 300,000 โ 800,000
- International clinic consultationVND 1.5 โ 3 million
Checked . Ranges, not quotes โ your Insider confirms the current numbers in Ho Chi Minh City before you commit to anything.
Three tiers of care
Public hospitals such as Cho Ray are clinically capable and extremely cheap, but crowded, and consultations happen in Vietnamese. Local private hospitals sit in the middle: modern, affordable, some English. International clinics and hospitals โ the Franco-Vietnamese hospital and the established international family practices among them โ charge Western-adjacent prices for Western-style service and are where most foreign residents go by default.
- Public: cheapest, busiest, Vietnamese-language, long waits.
- Local private: good value for routine care and diagnostics.
- International: English-speaking, direct billing with major insurers, several times the price.
Insurance and compulsory contributions
Foreign employees with a work permit and a contract of a year or more are brought into the compulsory social and health insurance system. Health insurance takes 1.5% of salary from you and 3% from the employer, and social insurance takes a further 8% from you, up to a salary ceiling. That gives access to the public system, not to the international clinics, so almost every foreign worker also holds private cover โ usually through the employer. Check the annual limit, whether outpatient care is included, and whether the plan direct-bills the clinics you would actually use.
- Contributions apply to most foreign employees on contracts of a year or more; confirm your own position with your employer.
- Private plans: check evacuation, repatriation, outpatient cover and direct billing.
- Cover bought locally may not travel with you when you leave the country.
Emergencies
115 is the public ambulance number, but response times in Ho Chi Minh City are unreliable and the traffic works against them. Residents in an urgent situation commonly call a private hospital's own ambulance service directly, or in a lesser emergency take a taxi. Know which hospital you would go to, and have its number saved, before you need it.
- 115 for public ambulance, 113 police, 114 fire.
- Private hospitals operate their own ambulances that can be called directly.
- Save the number and address of your chosen hospital in Vietnamese as well as English.
Pharmacies and seasonal risks
Pharmacy chains are everywhere and dispense a wide range without prescription, which is convenient and occasionally a problem โ counterfeit and mislabelled medicine is a known issue, so use the established chains rather than a stall. Dengue is endemic and peaks in the rainy season, and air quality deteriorates noticeably at certain times of year. Vaccinations and repellent are ordinary precautions here, not travel-clinic theatre.