A Dental Implant in Vietnam Costs About a Third of What It Does in Taiwan
Vietnam's public hospitals charge about a third of Taiwan's price for a dental implant. Australians are already flying in, and the government wants dentistry to anchor its medical tourism push.
[A Dental Implant in Vietnam Costs About a Third of What It Does in Taiwan]
For more than 20 years, a woman in Adelaide, Australia, covered her mouth with her hand whenever she spoke. Two years ago the pain got so bad she could barely eat. The quote from her local dentist, she said, was something she would be paying off for the rest of her life.
Then she started seeing ads on social media for dental packages in Vietnam. The price was about a third of the Australian quote, with flights, hotel, visa and airport transfers thrown in. She suspected a scam, did her research and went anyway. Back home, she called it the best thing she had ever done.
The gap looks just as wide from Taiwan. At the National Hospital of Odonto-Stomatology in Ho Chi Minh City, a public hospital, the published price for implant surgery plus a porcelain-fused-to-metal crown works out to about NT$22,000 to NT$37,000 (roughly USD 690 to 1,150). At National Taiwan University Hospital, the same components add up to at least NT$71,500 to NT$110,000 (about USD 2,250 to 3,460). Public hospital against public hospital, Vietnam charges about 30% of the Taiwanese price.
Dentistry is already one of the main things foreign patients come to Vietnam for, and the Ministry of Health is finalizing a plan to more than double the number of medical tourists by 2030. But the price tag doesn't shrink the other costs: how long an implant takes, what happens if something goes wrong, and who picks up the case once you're home. Below, we break down both price lists, look at who is making the trip and what the government is planning, and tally what a failed implant costs on each side.
