My experience with the FV Hospital in Q.7

Informative post. Thanks for sharing your experience at FV Hospital. My husband and I normally stay with relatives in Q7 but luckily we've never had to use their services. Now I know what to expect. Glad to hear your wife is okay. Regards.

Snake77,

An upfront deposit for services, from you or your insurer, is required at every hospital in Vietnam.  That is just the way they work here.

FV is one of the better hospital in south Vietnam, and their rates reflect that.  Other hospitals have rates that are fractions of what FV charges, but the janitors there scold you and you don't want to mess with the nurses...

Snake77
I am glad that it worked out OK for you eventually.

There are health insurers who have set up so-called 'direct billing' with FV, so it means that if the diagnosis is within the standard coverage of the insurance plan, the hospital will automatically bill the insurer. No deposit required.
Not all hospitals offer this, but FV does. Even the famed Bumungrad in Bangkok has this direct billing facility with insurers for Vietnam plan.

I suspect your plan does not have that, thus creating this unnecessary mess. Note: this direct billing facility is not default, even your insurer has set up this facility with the specific hospitals. Check with them whether they have direct billing facility AND your plan has this feature. If yes, which hospitals.

If the answer is no and it is important for you to have it (very convenient if you live in SGN and Hanoi. Work even with certain dentists if you have dental coverage), you may consider switching to the plans which offer it.

If you need surgery and have health insurance, go to Baumagard hospital in Bangkok or Singapore Raffles Hospital/Mount Elizabeth. I had a horrible experience with FV for a fractured cheek bone (Singapore doctors were shocked at the diagnosis the FV doctor had given me) and have heard of too many other horror stories for various surgeries.

Locals don't go to FV, they go to better doctors at local hospitals. Expats with health insurance go abroad.

However, I have heard of good doctors at FV too, like original poster- do your research on the doctor first before doing anything at FV. Your health is too important.

@Anatta, I'm going to look into this direct billing set up. Definitely want to be on the safe side, especially with the child coming. Funny thing is, on the way from Bien Hoa to SGN, we went first to the Sihospital (International Saigon Hospital, Q.1) and there the bills got paid by our insurer without me having to pay a single dong. Maybe the FV doesn't have direct billing with my insurer, I'll check that soon (just in case...). The Sihospital told us to go to "another" place, my insurer then asked me to go to the FV, that's why I don't understand where the problem came from, anyway, wasn't that much of a mess, I just wanted to inform others.

@Wild_1, not sure what you mean when you say "mess with the nurses"?

@EricAsato, I would have Global Medivac back to Europe for the worst case szenario, I agree with you that health is too important and you "better have and not need - than need and not have"...

btw, I got a PM from another person who got treated very good at the FV, guess you can never generalize. I also know one guy who nearly died at, or rather after he went to the Bumrungard BKK Hospital due to wrong diagnose there, can happen anywhere...

OTOH I have never heard anything bad about Singapore Hospitals, but they're all just humans at the end of the day!

Oh and amberlulu, or any other "wife" that may have to go to the FV one of these days (hope you don't, but just in case...), to the defense of your husband, if he may want to pop down for a beer or two, to your information, a can of heineken at the FV cafeteria goes for 40'000. That is the normal price and does not reflect any further "treatment or better quality" (no "om" or other extras provided, he's telling the truth)!

snake77 wrote:

@Wild_1, not sure what you mean when you say "mess with the nurses"?

He just meant you should not mess around with them pretty nurses .

Just kidding. In public hospitals, the doctors and nurses are gods with a capital G. They dictate and you'd better obey. One bad word and you can wait forever before you get any kinds of treatment. B

Ten years ago, I really liked PV and both my wife and i had most of our medical work done there. Quality at PV has slid over the years. Still, for non Vietnamese speakers who don't have medical professionals as personal friends, PV is still a good choice.

Mostly we deal with the local doctors where we are. We know most of them and know who is good at what. For serious stuff, we go to Trieu An Hospital. Trieu An Hospital is much nicer and much cheaper than PV. We arranged to have the Head of the Med School Kidney Dept do my kidney surgery. That is one of the big advantages of Trieu An Hospital. You can select your Doctor from a wide pool of Doctors that includes some of the best Doctors in Viet Nam.

Trieu An Hospital downsides, knowledge of Vietnamese is a must as is having someone you know and trust help you select your Doctor.

As the saying goes.....doctors bury their mistakes.

I have been to An Sinh hospital and found it to be very good, nice staff, fairly clean and very quick.I went to FV twice for medicals and really cant complain except for the high cost compared to a good VN hospital. Here in Vung Tau you could end up worse then you went in if you use the general hospital.

If you are totally ignorant of your diseases, of course any doctor or hospital exploit that ignorance and prescribe so many tests and medicines.There is no 'mercy' to cut your throat till bleeding...
Years ago I went with my Korean friend there in FVH and give exact report about his sickness. Then the Korean doctor just prescribed some medicines for stomach ache and... yes it cure within 2 days!
May be he can suggest so many medical tests, but he seems fair with our knowledge in that disease.

Iv been to FV a few times and had a three operations (surgery?) there and it is good but i dont think its better then the Vietnamese hospitals and in one case:

Motorbike accident left me with a big hematome lodged in my spine and i had a broken back a few years back so my nerves are already not 100% the FV French doctor did all the tests and just gave me some pills and sent me home. I was still suffering so much i couldent feel my legs and move around so i called a Vietnamese doctor i know that works at a Korean clinic, went in to the clinic he did some tests and shot a bunch of needles into my spine and a few weeks later i was ok and he said that was the only think that would help. "note he is the head of diagnostics board in Saigon" but still Vietnamese doctors arent bad and sometimes even better then their foreign counterparts.

But on the other hand the stay at FV hospital was much much better then the Vietnamese hospitals, room, food, nurses etc. It is pricy and even if you have a direct billing insurance and youv been there countless times, got a card and they know you by first name you still need to put up a deposit of 5,000.000vnd before they will take you in which i can understand to a point since all the hospitals do it but i still think its not fair to everyone.

/Andreas

It's interesting and informative to read all these posts about FV Hospital. At a recent visit, I was approached to sign up a form which has the FV logo at top left hand corner and it reads Don Xin Lam Hoi Vien. At the back page, it has a table showing various fees and I was told I could ONLY enrol in a Uu Tien showing a fee of 9 million VND.
Can anyone throw some light on this. I have yet to sign and return this form. Cam on

The information you posted about FV is completely normal!!  except in certain situations most countries health care systems would not allow access to healthcare and especially admission/surgery until you have proven you can pay for it, or had acceptance from an insurer that they will guarantee the payment. FV is no different, unless you are suffering from life threatening condition, you will not be treated for free ! would you go to the Hyatt if you only have enough money for a hotel in backpackers area?  and then complain that they didn't let you check in?  as for care in FV, they are just like every other hospital in the world - doctors are human and u will receive the best care they can give.. its very rare that a doctor in the private sector will stay long in that hospital if he is clearly giving bad care. Having had surgery in fv and a few kids, its simply the only place I would trust in VN, and if they can't handle your case they will tell you.  Very thankful they are here rather than have to risk being shipped out in a real emergency such as traffic accident, severe bleeding, appendicectomy etc where each minute counts.

From my experiences, FV is still the best in Vietnam even they are not at the level of European hospitals.
Example: my father had a head CT scan with them during his visit in sgn then when he returned the scan to his specialist doctor in France, Doc said that the scanning was not clear enough and requested a new scan.
However I strongly don't recomment Elizabeth hospital, my wife had an broken arm and their diagnostics were completement in the direction of "making money". They requested to do 3 surgery operations asap with the cost package 50k usd... An other Doctor from Argentin in Saigon Family Practice recommended her not to do anything... and she was recovered herself. Conclusion is Singapore diagnostics may be very very commercial regardless the necessity (or not) of the acts....

I went to FV hospital emergency department last night at 10pm with high fever, sore throat, dizziness, and extreme headache. (I only get headache when I am sick).

The staff are very nice. The emergency department looks newly built and there was no air conditioning. The nurse explained to me it is in process of being repaired. I was too hot with the fever. They brought a fan but it just blew around hot air. There should be a chair in each exam area for the people who come with patients to sit on.

Children were walking unattended up and down the hallway peering into the room. Not an issue for me but may be for some. Cigarette smoke flooded into the space because they smoke outside by the door of the reception.

It was extremely expensive. It cost me $379 USD  to leave.After I got home I realized the doctor never looked inside my ears, just at my throat which is infected. Also his medical report stated I had been suffering for 5 days which is untrue. He changed it when I asked him. This is important for my insurance company because they will not pay for an emergency visit if you have suffered for 5 days and did not go to the regular doctor.

If you are allergic to latex they do not have any other gloves.

They ran a lot of lab tests for malaria, dengue, cbc, differential, etc.  After normal business hours they only accept payment in VND or by local or international credit card. I used my local atm card to pay. You can buy your medicine from them or from an outside pharmacy. Was certainly convenient to buy medicine from them as the nurse fetched it from the hospital pharmacy.

The doctor only have 5 days antibiotic and told me to make a followup appointment with ent doctor in 5 days. Well after already paying them so much money I am out of money! Ridiculous why he did not give me the full course of anitbiotics --10 days.

They will only bill your insurance if you are an inpatient and even then they expect you to pay first unless your insurance company is contracted with them.

The bathroom is a long way from the treatment area, you have to go outside the emergency department. It is a 1 seater with lots of mosquitoes and cold air conditioning. They need to plug in a raid machine to get rid of mosquitoes.

If I am going to pay a premium price I expect premium services like air conditioning, pictures on the walls, the correct full course of medication, etc. This felt like a tremendous fleecing to me and I will not go back unless I am again extremely ill.

The doctors were also coughing and sneezing and looked visibly ill but they were kind and answered my questions. taxi can pull up right at the door. This is also convenient.

I am sorry my response to your post is so late but until October 2015 FV offered attractive membership packages which essentially turned their services into a managed care scenario. Now they have changed their memberships and are charging older people more money etc. I believe the company name you mentioned was one of the underwriters of their membership/insurance plan.

Also if you go to FV and have no insurance they say they offer a lower rate but they did not say how much lower.

I have fond memories of PV(Phap Viet) from  about 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the hospital started getting overcrowded, prices started going up and quality went down.

Liem TA 02 February 2014 rates PV as the best hospital in Feb 2014. Possibly. But, I found Trieu An Hospital a better fit for me until the City International Hospital opened in Binh Tan. The Foreigner program at Cho Ray is also good

Also note, International SOS has an excellent clinic. They even accept my insurance, Tricare; while City International does require payment up front. CIty International is still my choice.

Thank you, That is very helpful!

70 years old wrote:

They even accept my insurance, Tricare.

You are fortunate that Tricare will pay for work overseas because Medicare stops at the US borders.  It does seem unfortunate that they won't pay for procedures that cost a fraction of what is billed in the US.