In the submission on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, the Government proposed to remove the referral procedure for some rare diseases, serious diseases... to be directly promoted to a higher level of expertise to reduce procedures, create convenience, reduce out-of-pocket expenses for people, and save costs for the Health Insurance Fund.
However, in the discussion session on the afternoon of October 31, some National Assembly delegates proposed to "keep the same" transfer procedures.
According to them, the referral form provides administrative information as well as medical condition, treatment history... helping the receiving facility prepare timely information for effective and quick treatment.
In addition, these delegates proposed that the Ministry of Health should supplement the definition of "rare disease" and the list of serious diseases that are granted a one-time referral certificate for the entire treatment process, instead of granting it for each fiscal year as is currently the case.
The request to legalize the definition of rare diseases and the list of critical illnesses is correct and necessary. However, maintaining the referral procedure for rare and critical illnesses in the current context seems no longer appropriate and should be abolished as proposed by the Government for many reasons.
Under the current regulations of the Health Insurance Law, people must register for initial medical examination and treatment at medical facilities according to administrative boundaries. This causes difficulties for patients with serious or rare diseases, when lower-level facilities lack professional capacity and patients have to be transferred to higher-level facilities for treatment.
According to delegate Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran (Binh Duong National Assembly Delegation), currently, referral procedures still cause inconvenience to patients in some places, even causing negativity and frustration for patients and their families.
Some other delegates proposed stricter regulations to minimize difficulties in issuing referral papers.
For example, if a patient has been diagnosed with a serious illness at a higher-level hospital, they should be allowed to complete their treatment regimen without having to return to request a referral.
This is also unnecessary, because strengthening regulations to "thoroughly resolve" patients' concerns about referral papers, especially negative issues, is not easy and cannot be resolved immediately.
People who are sick in the hospital suffer one thing, but those who are sick with rare or serious diseases suffer ten to one hundred times more. Not only physically, but also financially, because if just one person gets seriously ill, the family can fall into financial ruin.
The proposal to abolish referral papers for rare and serious diseases is not only a reasonable solution but also humane, helping to reduce the burden and anxiety for patients as well as their relatives!
