Amending the Law on Health Insurance with the principle of not distinguishing between health insurance and services is the right step to reduce long-standing inequality in access to health care.
However, for this new policy to truly come into effect, the Ministry of Health and hospitals need to have a strong commitment. As Mr. Hoang Trung Tuan, Deputy Director of the Department of Health Insurance (Ministry of Health) said: "Medical facilities must ensure fair, open, transparent treatment, without discrimination between service users and health insurance users."
Next are effective solutions to limit and eventually end the situation where medical facilities lack hospital beds, supplies, equipment, and medicines. This leads to hundreds of patients having to wait for surgery, radiotherapy, joint replacement, etc., despite their medical conditions requiring early intervention.
This situation has caused people to lose confidence in health insurance, leading to switching to other services or lines for faster treatment.
In the immediate future, the Ministry of Health and medical facilities at all levels must reduce the burden on the public health system by investing in facilities, equipment and human resources, especially at lower levels, to limit the pressure of patients on large hospitals.
Be transparent and open about the process by clearly announcing the surgery schedule, medical examination and treatment process and waiting time for all subjects. Apply technology to comprehensively manage, minimize unreasonable priority or service abuse.
Always train and raise awareness to ensure that medical staff comply with the spirit of the law, and do not allow "implicit discrimination" to occur.
Health insurance is an important social security policy to ensure the right to health care for the people. However, for the health insurance system to be truly humane and effective as desired, on the one hand, the new points of the revised Law on Health Insurance must be quickly put into practice.
On the one hand, the Ministry of Health must have additional effective solutions to completely end the discrimination between health insurance and services from both objective and subjective perspectives.
Once these issues are thoroughly addressed, people will certainly not only participate in health insurance out of responsibility, but also because they truly believe in a humane, fair, quality and effective health care system.
At that time, health insurance is not only a social security card, but also becomes a symbol of equality and humanity in the Vietnamese health system!
