Only move up but not down, the patient has to go far

Serious patients in the province are only sent to the Central Government.

Mr. Phan Van Toan, Deputy Director of the Department of Health Insurance ( Ministry of Health ), said that according to current regulations, with treatment facilities, when there is a medical condition that exceeds the hospital's treatment capacity, the hospital will be responsible for transferring the patient to a higher level.

But through the actual supervision of health insurance examination and treatment in some localities, at provincial hospitals (grade 1 hospitals), when there is a patient whose condition is beyond the professional capacity, the provincial hospital must transfer the patient to a higher level, which is the central level, and not to a private hospital (grade 2 hospital), which is a lower level, even though this private hospital has sufficient conditions to treat the patient.

Chuyển tuyến bảo hiểm y tế: Chỉ chuyển lên mà không xuống, người bệnh phải đi xa - Ảnh 1. — Convenient referral, within the scope of expertise, ensuring the rights of health insurance patients

The reason is that, according to regulations, upper-level hospitals are only allowed to transfer patients to lower-level hospitals in cases where the patient is seriously ill, has stable health, and the disease has subsided.

Such referrals force patients to travel far to higher-level facilities, when in reality they can be treated locally.

Transfer also ask - give

Agreeing with some difficulties in transferring health insurance lines, Ms. Tran Thi Trang, Director of the Department of Health Insurance (Ministry of Health), said that with its important professional significance and as a basis for determining the scope of health insurance benefits of patients, initial health insurance medical examination and treatment registration, regulations on professional division, transfer lines and referral papers are important in contributing to ensuring stability, balance and sustainability of the health examination and treatment system.

However, during the implementation process, some problems and shortcomings have arisen, such as: the regulations on initial medical examination and treatment registration are still heavily administrative, making it inconvenient for patients to go to other medical examination and treatment facilities at the same or lower level, thereby affecting the rights of patients.

It is worth noting that the procedures for transferring patients and issuing referral papers still cause inconvenience to patients. There are even cases of negativity, asking for and giving, and keeping patients, causing frustration for patients and their families, and there have been complaints.

The Ministry of Health and Vietnam Social Security are seeking opinions from professional units on amending some regulations on health insurance referrals; applying information technology in treatment referrals. This ensures more effective referrals based on professional competence, transparency, and convenience for health insurance patients.

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