Helping patients reduce financial burden
Regardless of the context, health insurance is the "lifeline" for patients. For example, a patient born in 2019 (Hai Duong province) was paid the highest amount in 2024 by the health insurance fund, more than 4.4 billion VND, after being diagnosed with the main disease of "Hemorrhage, diabetes, kidney failure".
A representative of Vietnam Social Insurance said that with the cost of participating in health insurance of less than 1 million VND/year, the cost of medical examination and treatment covered by the health insurance fund not only helps patients feel secure in long-term treatment, have access to special medicines and modern medical techniques, and improve treatment effectiveness; but also contributes to helping patients and their families reduce financial burdens and reduce the risk of falling into "deficiency" due to treatment.
In 2024 alone, the health insurance fund has paid for medical examination and treatment costs for over 184 million people, with a total health insurance expenditure of over 140,000 billion VND. In many cases, patients with serious illnesses and long-term treatment have costs of up to hundreds of millions of VND, even billions of VND, but people with health insurance cards only have to pay very little, or the health insurance fund will pay the entire cost of medical examination and treatment according to the correct benefit level.
Update on many drugs to treat cancer and rare diseases
Currently, the list of drugs funded by the health insurance fund basically meets the medical examination and treatment needs of patients with more than 1,000 active ingredients, new drug products and hundreds of traditional medicine and herbal medicine. Among them, there are many cancer drugs, rare diseases drugs, non-cksaturated blood disease drugs, diverse cardiovascular drugs... patients are prescribed long-term use, some drugs are used for life for the treatment of the disease.
In the context of increasingly high prices for medical services (especially treatment costs for chronic diseases, serious diseases, ...), the role of health insurance policies is becoming more and more practical and important for participants. Therefore, we always hope that people will proactively and actively participate and maintain health insurance cards continuously, so that when they are unfortunately sick or ill, there is a health insurance fund to accompany and share difficulties.
Expanding benefits for health insurance participants
From July 1, 2025, many new policies on health insurance stipulated in Law No. 51/2024/QH15 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance (Health Insurance Law 2024) will take effect. According to Dr. Nguyen Duc Hoa, amending and supplementing the Law on Health Insurance is an important step to perfect the health insurance policy in the direction of ensuring maximum benefits for participants and in line with the reality and development trends of people's health care. The 2024 Health Insurance Law will contribute to ensuring fairness in accessing health services among groups of health insurance participants, improving the quality of health services, and enhancing the sustainability of the Health Insurance Fund.
The 2024 Health Insurance Law has many important new points. First of all, the law has expanded the rights of health insurance participants, especially those with serious illnesses and serious illnesses. Many high-tech services and intensive inpatient treatment will be 100% covered by the health insurance fund, contributing to reducing the financial burden on patients.
In addition, health insurance covers both home and remote medical examination and treatment services, rehabilitation... In addition, the law also amends the mechanism for participating in household health insurance in a more favorable direction, encouraging the voluntary and proactive participation of people, especially groups outside the formal area.
In particular, the law also stipulates more clearly about solutions for managing safe and sustainable health insurance funds, associated with innovating payment methods, improving the efficiency of medical examination and treatment cost management. The promotion of IT application, digital transformation in health insurance management, and synchronous data connection between Vietnam Social Insurance, the health sector and medical facilities continue to help manage health insurance medical examination and treatment costs in a transparent and effective manner.
It can be said that the new points of this Law continue to strengthen important legal bases to improve the effectiveness of organizing the implementation of health insurance policies, better ensure the rights of participants, towards completing the goal of covering the health insurance of all people, building a sustainable and modern social security system - Dr. Hoa said.
