From the end of June, patients coming for examination at many central-level hospitals will have to pay higher when medical service prices are officially adjusted to increase. Notably, this is the first time "management costs" have been included in the examination and treatment price structure, causing a series of services from medical examination, expert consultation to bed treatment costs to simultaneously increase in price.
According to the decisions just issued by the Ministry of Health, according to Lao Dong's records, many large hospitals such as Viet Duc Friendship Hospital, K Hospital and Central Military Hospital 108 apply the new medical examination and treatment service price framework with an average increase of about 4%.
Patients have to "carry" additional management costs
If previously medical service prices were only calculated based on direct costs and labor, now management costs have officially become the third component in medical examination and treatment prices.
This expense includes many types of operating expenses such as electricity, water, medical equipment maintenance, property repair, professional liability insurance, taxes, fees, loan interest and other hospital management expenses.
This means that patients will have to pay an additional part of the costs to maintain the regular operation of medical facilities.
According to the Ministry of Health, the current price of medical examination and treatment services has been fully calculated in 3 of the 4 cost components. The remaining component, which is depreciation of assets and medical equipment, has not yet been included in the price.
Examination prices, bed and consultation fees simultaneously increase
With the new price frame, the health insurance examination fee increased from 50,600 VND to 52,600 VND/visit.
The cost of inviting experts from other units to participate in consultations for difficult cases increased from 200,000 VND to 208,000 VND/specialist/case.
Health check-up services also increased accordingly. Periodic health check-ups for workers or drivers increased from 160,000 VND to 166,400 VND. Health check-ups for people going to work abroad increased from 450,000 VND to 468,000 VND.
At Viet Duc Friendship Hospital and Central Military Hospital 108, the price of intensive care (ICU) beds, organ transplants, bone marrow transplants or stem cell transplants has increased to 1.058 million VND/day. Emergency resuscitation beds also exceed 623,000 VND/day.
Meanwhile, at K Hospital, the price of an ICU bed is up to more than 965,000 VND/day, while a resuscitation bed is nearly 581,000 VND/day.
For internal medicine beds, the new price ranges from 261,200 to 340,200 VND/day. Prices of surgical and burn beds range from 322,800 to 458,000 VND/day.
In addition, thousands of technical and testing services were also adjusted to increase in price. For example, the price of basic ultrasound services increased from 58,600 VND to 61,000 VND/performance.
According to the Ministry of Health, including management costs in service prices is a necessary step to ensure that public hospitals have sustainable operating resources.
According to management agencies, "calculating correctly and fully" will help hospitals have conditions to invest in technology, develop high technology, improve the quality of medical examination and treatment and improve income for the medical team.
