OBJECTIVES: Diabetes mellitus is among the top ten causes of death and disability, leading to a large economic burden worldwide. To estimate the cost of treating Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) from both the third-payer and patient perspective in a public hospital in Vietnam for the period 2012 to 2015.

METHODS: A study was conducted using retrospective data from District 9 Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from January 2012 to December 2015. Demographic information and treatment costs were collected from medical records stored in the hospital’s electronic databases. Treatment costs including the cost of medical examination, diagnosis, pharmaceuticals, procedures and medical supplements was performed by using descriptive statistics. Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney test were used to compare costs between patients’ groups.

RESULTS: The average cost per patient for the period 2012 to 2015 was 49.02 (63.65) USD, of which third-payers disbursed 25.28 (33.27) USD, and patients paid 23.74 (36.48) USD. The patients who aged from 60 to 69 paid the highest cost (72.00 USD per patient). Female patients had a significantly higher average treatment cost than did male patients, 55.40 (68.27) USD and 36.57 (51.75) USD, respectively. Patients in the group with a blood glucose level ≥180 mg/dL had an average treatment cost of 69.93 (80.27) USD and were the highest in all groups of blood glucose levels.

CONCLUSIONS: This study estimated the cost of treatment for patients with T2DM in order to be a reference for the government to adopt more appropriate diabetes mellitus management policies.