According to Viet Nam Social Security, by the end of 2025, nearly 98 million people nationwide were covered by health insurance, reaching 95.16% of the population. The number of health insurance-covered medical visits exceeded 195.1 million, an increase of 11.5 million visits (6.5%) compared with 2024. Total requested health insurance reimbursements reached 166.4 trillion VND, up by more than 23.5 trillion VND, equivalent to a 16.43% increase.
Notably, the Health Insurance Fund is currently covering about 7.98 million people with hypertension, more than 400,000 cardiovascular intervention cases, over 3.3 million diabetes patients, more than 1.1 million people with chronic respiratory diseases, and nearly 500,000 cancer patients.
In 2025 alone, non-communicable diseases accounted for around 51 million medical visits, an increase of more than 4 million visits (8.6%) compared with the previous year, with total reimbursement costs reaching 19.85 trillion VND, up 17.82%.
These figures clearly reflect the rapid rise in treatment costs for chronic diseases, while also highlighting increasing pressure on the Health Insurance Fund, particularly from diabetes and metabolic disorders. This reality underscores the urgent need to innovate management approaches, shifting from fragmented treatment to comprehensive management, and from reactive to proactive prevention and disease control.
This information was presented at the workshop “Towards a Sustainable Health Insurance System in Viet Nam: Developing and Utilising Data to Support a Comprehensive Approach to Managing Metabolic Disorders”, jointly organised by the Viet Nam Social Security and the Embassy of Denmark in Viet Nam on April 16.
The workshop took place against the backdrop of Viet Nam’s healthcare system facing significant challenges from the rapid increase in non-communicable diseases, requiring effective cost management solutions while ensuring the rights of health insurance participants and the sustainability of the fund.
According to Deputy Director of Viet Nam Social Security Nguyen Duc Hoa, in recent years, health insurance policies have been continuously improved, gradually affirming their role as one of the important pillars of the social security system. As a result, people’s access to healthcare services has been increasingly expanded, helping reduce the burden of medical expenses and ensure equity in healthcare.
However, in the current context, the health insurance system is facing many challenges, particularly rising pressure from non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic kidney disease. These diseases are increasing rapidly, require lifelong treatment, and involve high costs, directly affecting the balance and sustainability of the Health Insurance Fund.
At the workshop, representatives of Viet Nam Social Security proposed several key groups of solutions to improve the efficiency of management, monitoring, and treatment.
Firstly, it is necessary to continue improving the legal framework and professional guidelines, focusing on issuing regulations on the management, exploitation, and use of medical examination and treatment data to support monitoring and treatment.
In addition, efforts should be strengthened in training, capacity improving, standardising clinical coding, and data standardisation to ensure continuous management of metabolic diseases, thereby improving information quality across the system. At the same time, data quality control should be enhanced through appropriate financial and management mechanisms to ensure the accuracy, completeness, and transparency of health insurance examination and treatment data.
Alongside these measures, accelerating the application of information technology, developing analytical tools, and early warning systems has been identified as a key factor, contributing to supporting effective management, assessment, and treatment, moving towards the goal of using the Health Insurance Fund safely, efficiently, and sustainably.
