6 special cases are counted for 5-year consecutive health insurance benefits

Legal Consulting Department of Lao Dong Newspaper answers:

Article 18 of Decree 188/2025/ND-CP detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance stipulates the application of benefits for cases with 5-year or more continuous health insurance participation as follows:

1. Some cases are counted as continuous health insurance participation time to apply the benefit level when there is a continuous health insurance participation time of 5 years or more as prescribed in Point d, Clause 1, Article 22 of the Law on Health Insurance are specified as follows:

a) In case of interrupted health insurance participation within 90 days, it is counted as continuous health insurance participation time;

b) A person who is assigned by a competent authority to work, study, work or under the regime of spouse, husband or biological child, legal adopted child under 18 years old who follows their father or mother to work for a term at a Vietnamese agency abroad, the time abroad is counted as the time of health insurance participation;

c) Workers when going to work abroad according to the Law on Vietnamese Workers going to work abroad under contract and cases where state agencies send them to work abroad, the time they have participated in health insurance before going to work abroad is counted as the time they have participated in health insurance if when returning home they continue to participate in health insurance within 30 days from the date of entry;

d) Employees during the time of completing procedures to apply for unemployment benefits according to the provisions of the Employment Law, except for the time from the date of termination of the labor contract or working contract to the date of submitting the application for unemployment benefits, the time of previous health insurance participation is counted as the time of health insurance participation;

d) Subjects specified in Points a, b and d, Clause 3, Article 12 of the Law on Health Insurance when retiring, demobilized, transferring to another sector or resigning, the time of studying and working in the people's army, people's police and cipher organizations is counted as health insurance participation time. In case there is no sufficient basis to determine health insurance participation time, the social insurance agency shall base on one of the documents issued by the military unit, police, cipher unit showing the working process such as: Social insurance book, demobilization decision, resignation; background: soldier, worker and national defense officer, people's police, cipher; work process confirmation from a regiment level unit and equivalent or higher to determine health insurance participation time for the subject;

e) Subjects specified in point d, clause 3, Article 12 of the Law on Health Insurance when ceasing to perform the duty of standing militia, the time of performing the duty is counted as the time of participating in health insurance.

Thus, the above cases are counted as continuous health insurance participation time to apply the benefit level when there is a continuous health insurance participation time of 5 years or more.