Medical Tourism and Foreign-Invested Hospitals: Licensing Medical Practice With Foreign Doctors

Medical tourism features prominently in Vietnam’s strategy to attract international patients, but a foreign-invested hospital project actually operates under the strict licensing framework of the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment 15/2023/QH15, effective from 1 January 2024, and its guiding Decree 96/2023/ND-CP. Two licences decide whether the project can open its doors: the operating licence of the medical facility and the practice certificate of each practitioner, with foreign doctors the most tightly controlled group in terms of language, scope of practice and practice duration.

The operating licence of a foreign-invested hospital

A medical examination and treatment facility must meet conditions on physical infrastructure, medical equipment, organisational structure and personnel for its registered organisational form, and then be licensed by the health authority before receiving patients. For a hospital, the file must demonstrate the minimum specialty departments for the registered bed scale, a person responsible for professional and technical matters who practises full-time and meets practice-duration requirements, and systems for infection control, medical waste management and radiation safety where imaging services exist. A foreign investor establishing a hospital in Vietnam must also complete investment procedures under investment law, where hospital services are a market-access-conditional business line for foreign investors, so the capital ratio and service scope need checking against international commitments and health sector rules at project preparation stage.

The real time for a new hospital to open is usually longer than investors forecast, because construction, fire appraisal, environmental appraisal, medical facility design approval and operating licensing follow one another, each step depending on the previous result. A common mistake is signing employment contracts with core doctors too early against the initial opening date, then paying months of salary while waiting for the licence. The fix is to tie the effectiveness of key doctors’ contracts to the grant of the operating licence, while running the legal, construction and medical human resources workstreams in parallel rather than sequentially, so the licensing file is prepared while the building is still being finished.

Foreign doctors: practice certificates, language and scope of practice

A foreigner wishing to practise medicine in Vietnam must obtain a practice certificate under the 2023 Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, based on recognised professional qualifications, a period of practice at a medical facility as prescribed and health conditions. A notable change in current law is that the practice certificate is valid for five years and renewable in cycles tied to continuous medical knowledge updating, replacing the former one-off lifetime grant, so a hospital must manage expiry schedules and renewal files for each doctor as it manages its own sub-licences. The scope of practice stated in the certificate is a hard limit: a cosmetic surgeon may not expand into internal medicine interventions outside the granted scope, and a hospital allowing practice beyond scope shares liability when an incident occurs.

The biggest practical barrier for foreign doctors is the Vietnamese language requirement in medical practice, unless a qualified interpreter is arranged as prescribed. Hospitals serving international patients usually solve this with a full-time medical interpreter team, but note that interpreting in medicine is not mere language conversion: medical records, surgical consent forms and risk counselling must be recorded in a language the patient understands and filed as prescribed, because if a dispute arises the medical record is the central evidence and a treatment consent the patient signed without understanding its content will be assessed against the hospital. Beyond the practice certificate, a foreign doctor also needs a work permit or an exemption under labour law, and the two procedures have independent file conditions so they must run in parallel from an early stage.

Medical tourism: real opportunity and limits on advertising and referral

Current law has no separate licence called a medical tourism licence. The activity is a composite of licensed medical services, travel services supplied by tour partners and accompanying accommodation and interpretation services. The consequence is that a hospital may not advertise medical services beyond its licensed scope of operations, advertising content for medical services must be confirmed as prescribed before release, and outcome-guarantee style commitments are prohibited in medical advertising. Many international marketing campaigns of hospitals stumble on this point when they reuse advertising templates from markets where medical advertising rules are looser than Vietnam’s.

For international patients, a hospital must also handle three operational issues with legal content: cross-border payment and invoicing for patients and foreign insurers; referral and medical record handover when the patient returns home for continued treatment, tied to the duty to protect health data as sensitive personal data under Decree 356/2025/ND-CP replacing Decree 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection; and the complaint and compensation mechanism when a medical incident involves a non-resident patient. The service contract with international patients should therefore include governing law, record language and a 24/7 incident contact from the registration form stage, instead of debating which terms the patient accepted only after an incident has occurred.

Professional liability and insurance: the part investors leave last

When a medical incident occurs, liability is analysed in three layers: the professional liability of the practitioner directly involved, the organisational liability of the hospital as service provider, and non-contractual damage compensation liability under civil law. A professional council is established to conclude whether a professional error occurred, and that conclusion is the central basis for both civil compensation and practice discipline handling. A foreign-invested hospital should buy professional liability insurance for both the facility and each practitioner from the first day of operation, and build an internal incident reporting process that is separate from the fault-determination process, so that medical staff dare to report early instead of concealing incidents for fear of immediate personal blame in the first report.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is a foreign-invested hospital licensed to conduct medical examination and treatment?

A hospital is licensed to operate when it meets conditions on infrastructure, medical equipment, organisation and personnel for the hospital form, has a professionally responsible person who is fully qualified to practise full-time, and completes fire, environmental and medical facility design appraisals in sequence. The facility may receive patients only after receiving its operating licence under the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment 15/2023/QH15 and Decree 96/2023/ND-CP; the foreign investor must simultaneously complete investment procedures for this conditional market-access business line.

What conditions must a foreign doctor meet to practise in Vietnam?

A foreign doctor must hold a Vietnamese medical practice certificate, granted on the basis of recognised qualifications, the prescribed period of practice and health conditions; the certificate is valid for five years and renewal is tied to continuous medical knowledge updating. The doctor may practise only within the scope stated in the certificate, must meet the language requirement in practice or work through a qualified medical interpreter, and must hold a work permit or qualify for a work permit exemption under labour law.

What legal framework for developing medical tourism in Vietnam is worth noting?

There is no separate medical tourism licence; the activity combines licensed medical services with partners’ travel, accommodation and interpretation services. The key points are that medical service advertising must stay within the licensed scope and have its content confirmed, with treatment outcome guarantees prohibited; and hospitals serving international patients need standardised multilingual treatment consent files, health data protection under Decree 356/2025/ND-CP and a mechanism for record handover and incident handling for non-resident patients.