Meet the medical examination and treatment needs of the people
Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security Nguyen Duc Hoa said that the National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance with a very high consensus rate.
The Law ensures the direction of the Party, State and National Assembly leaders with substantive, concise regulations, ensuring ease of understanding and feasibility. Clearly stipulates the tasks and powers of agencies, organizations and individuals to improve the implementation capacity in the implementation of health insurance. Resolves institutional bottlenecks and synchronizes with other laws in the implementation process. Simplifies procedures, creating the highest convenience for people receiving health insurance treatment. Assigns the Government and ministries to regulate the contents under their authority to flexibly and promptly amend when necessary; minimizes overlapping regulations with the contents already stipulated in other laws.
“As the agency directly implementing the health insurance policy, contacting the people, and grasping the actual situation, in recent times, Vietnam Social Security has actively participated in the process of amending the Health Insurance Law. The social insurance sector will proactively detect difficulties and obstacles, and at the same time research and propose many solutions to amend, supplement, and perfect health insurance policies and laws. The recommendations and proposals of Vietnam Social Security have been incorporated into the draft Law. The ultimate goal is to ensure the rights and legitimate interests of participants and beneficiaries of the policy are enhanced, better meeting the increasing demand for medical examination and treatment of the people,” said Deputy General Director Nguyen Duc Hoa.
Expanding the scope of health insurance benefits
The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance has many outstanding new points that bring benefits and convenience to health insurance participants. In particular, the Law has completely amended Article 12 of the old Law on subjects, payment methods, and payment levels, in sync with the Law on Social Insurance (amended) that was just passed by the National Assembly in June 2024. Many new groups of subjects have been added as well as increased support levels.
Regarding the expansion of benefits, the Law expands the scope of health insurance benefits with the form of remote medical examination and treatment, supporting remote medical examination and treatment, family medicine medical examination and treatment, and home medical examination and treatment to synchronize with the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment in 2023 and the trend of digital transformation in the health sector.
One highlight is that in the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, the regulations are designed towards "erasing administrative boundaries" in medical examination and treatment.
The law is consistent with the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment in classifying expertise into 3 levels: Intensive, basic and initial. In which, the transfer of medical examination and treatment facilities does not depend on the level (commune, district, province, central as before); creating maximum conditions for patients, reducing administrative procedures when transferring medical examination and treatment facilities.
Regarding initial medical examination and treatment registration, there are very clear regulations and criteria. In particular, people who register for initial medical examination and treatment at a higher level will receive medical examination and treatment at a lower level. In particular, health insurance participants are entitled to 100% of the benefits when receiving medical examination and treatment at a basic or specialized medical facility in the case of confirmed diagnosis and treatment of certain rare diseases, serious diseases, diseases requiring surgery or using advanced techniques according to regulations of the Minister of Health.
Thus, in some cases of rare, serious diseases requiring surgery or high technology, patients do not need to be transferred to a higher level of care as prescribed but still enjoy 100% of the benefits. The law also stipulates overcoming the shortage of drugs and medical supplies, ensuring the rights of patients when having to buy drugs outside...
In addition, the Law also stipulates the responsibility of the Ministry of Health in reviewing and regularly updating treatment regimens to ensure convenience in medical examination and treatment and payment of health insurance; regulations on assessing the reasonableness of providing health insurance medical examination and treatment services; regulations on the application of information technology, digital transformation, data sharing in the field of health insurance, the connection and use of paraclinical results between medical examination and treatment facilities in accordance with professional requirements and providing solutions to enhance the capacity of health insurance medical examination and treatment for grassroots health care; additional regulations on issuing electronic health insurance cards, etc.
“These are major reforms, creating many conveniences for people in health insurance. Vietnam Social Security will closely coordinate and unify with the Ministry of Health in synchronous implementation, and at the same time widely communicate to people to understand. Vietnam Social Security has been fully prepared and ready with resources; closely coordinate with the Ministry of Health to promptly and effectively implement the Law, helping people to have health insurance treatment more and more conveniently, with better and better quality” - Deputy General Director Nguyen Duc Hoa shared.
