Promote policy propaganda towards universal health insurance

Mr. Dinh Nho Khanh, Deputy Director of Ninh Binh Provincial Social Insurance, said: Right from the beginning of each year, the Provincial Social Insurance has developed a plan, closely coordinated with departments, branches, organizations, unions, and local authorities to propagate and disseminate new policies on health insurance for people, businesses, and workers in many forms.

At the same time, regularly organize direct dialogue sessions for social insurance officers to exchange and answer people's opinions and concerns, helping them understand correctly and clearly the health insurance policy of the Party and State for the lives of each person and the community.

Regarding the collection service organizations, under the direction of Vietnam Social Security, currently, the Social Security agency has signed authorization contracts for collection with 6 collection service organizations, including: Vocational Training Support Center (Provincial Farmers' Association); Ninh Binh Provincial Post Office ; Viettel Ninh Binh; Truong Phuc Construction and Trading Service Company Limited; Quang Uy Insurance Company Limited and Phuc Lam Training and Insurance Service Company Limited.

Accordingly, hundreds of collection agents of collection service organizations are also interested, facilitated, and promote their role as "extended arms" of the Insurance industry in disseminating health insurance policies to the people.

Ninh Binh Social Insurance also opened training courses for staff of collection agents and collection points for social insurance and health insurance to expand the propaganda network at the grassroots level. Coordinated with associations and unions to organize conferences to propagate, consult and dialogue on voluntary social insurance and family health insurance policies to a large number of members and people.

By the end of June 2023, the collection service organizations in the province were managing nearly 240,000 people participating in household health insurance, reaching nearly 90% of the target assigned by Vietnam Social Security. In particular, some collection service organizations with a completion rate of the target on household health insurance are Training and Insurance Services Company Limited reaching 225.5%; Quang Uy Insurance Company Limited reaching 95.71%; Provincial Post Office reaching 77%... The health insurance coverage rate of the whole province reached 91.04% of the population.

As a small business family in Nam Binh ward (Ninh Binh city), in the past, Ms. Tran Thi Hien thought she was still young and healthy, and did not care about participating in health insurance for herself and her family members. Apart from her two children who are going to school and receiving support and regularly participating in health insurance every year, Ms. Hien and her husband did not buy health insurance for themselves.

"Until I unfortunately discovered a type of women's disease and had to undergo surgery and long-term treatment. All costs for surgery, hospitalization, medicine... cost more than 10 million VND, while those who participate in health insurance only have to pay about 1 million VND. From that, I learned a lesson that I cannot be subjective and neglect my health and that of my family members. So for the past 2 years, I have regularly participated in family health insurance for both my husband and I. With the health insurance participation amount of more than 1 million VND, but our health is protected for a whole year, so we feel comfortable and very secure..." - Ms. Hien affirmed.

Also according to Mr. Dinh Nho Khanh, Deputy Director of Ninh Binh Provincial Social Insurance, from July 1, 2023, the basic salary will be adjusted to 1.8 million VND/month according to Decree 24/2023/ND-CP of the Government. Therefore, the contribution level and regime, and benefits of health insurance (HI) will also be adjusted in accordance with the new regulations.

Currently, the cost of a medical examination and treatment is lower than 15% of the basic salary (lower than 223,500 VND), then the health insurance participant will be paid 100% of the cost. When the basic salary increases to 1.8 million VND/month, the cost of a medical examination mentioned above will change to 270,000 VND.

Accordingly, people with health insurance cards who go to medical examination and treatment in accordance with regulations and have a total cost of one medical examination and treatment lower than VND 270,000 (equivalent to 15% of the basic salary) do not have to make co-payment. Thus, the one-time medical examination and treatment cost covered 100% by health insurance will increase by VND 46,500 from July 1, 2023. This is a health insurance benefit that increases when the basic salary increases.

Promote policy propaganda towards universal health insurance — Eye Hospital creates favorable conditions for health insurance patients when coming for medical examination and treatment.

Along with that is the change in conditions for enjoying 100% of medical examination and treatment costs. Accordingly, in addition to policy groups, health insurance participants are only entitled to enjoy 100% of medical examination and treatment costs when they have 5 consecutive years of health insurance participation and the amount of co-payment for medical examination and treatment costs in the year is greater than 6 months of basic salary. That is, during the year, if the amount of medical examination and treatment that the patient co-pays is greater than 6 months of basic salary, the excess of 6 months of basic salary will be paid by the health insurance fund and the patient will be paid 100% of the medical examination and treatment costs from this point until the end of the year.

Because the co-payment conditions are based on the basic salary, when the basic salary changes from July 1, the conditions for exemption from co-payment will also change. Specifically, from the beginning of 2023 until June 30, people who have participated in health insurance for 5 consecutive years or more and have the amount of co-payment for medical examination and treatment costs in the year greater than VND 8,940,000 (6 months of basic salary of VND 1,490,000/month), the excess of 6 months of basic salary will be paid by the health insurance fund and the patient will be paid 100% of the medical examination and treatment costs from this time until the end of the year.

From July 1, 2023, when the basic salary increases to 1.8 million VND/month, people who have participated in health insurance for 5 consecutive years or more must have an amount of co-payment for medical examination and treatment costs in the year greater than 10,800,000 VND (6 months of basic salary) to enjoy the above benefits.

Currently, the provincial Social Insurance has signed medical examination and treatment contracts with 190 health insurance examination and treatment facilities in the province, ensuring full benefits for health insurance participants when going for medical examination and treatment. In 2022, the whole province will have nearly 1.6 million people going for health insurance examination and treatment and the health insurance fund will pay 1,004 billion VND. Ninh Binh is one of the provinces that does not exceed the estimated expenditure for health insurance examination and treatment assigned by the Government.

In the first 6 months of 2023, the whole province had nearly 850,000 people going for health examination and treatment under health insurance, with a payment of nearly 500 billion VND. There have been cases of people participating in health insurance, when suffering from incurable diseases, serious illnesses, the cost of medical examination and treatment was paid hundreds of millions of VND, giving them peace of mind during treatment.

Participating in health insurance is necessary and extremely important because it brings many practical benefits to each person, each family and is a way of sharing and supporting the community. However, in reality, the propaganda and dissemination of policies and laws on health insurance are still limited. That is, a part of the people do not fully understand the new regulations of the Health Insurance Law.

Along with that, the coverage of health insurance is still uneven in localities, especially in rural and mountainous areas, areas that are no longer supported to participate in health insurance as before.

With the province's health insurance coverage rate currently accounting for 91.04% of the population, while nearly 10% of the population has not participated in health insurance, the Social Insurance sector has proposed many solutions to work with agencies, units, and localities to implement, contributing to the effective implementation of the universal health insurance roadmap.

In particular, communicating the health insurance policy to the people is considered a very effective solution. Communication will help bring the policy to the people more widely, ensuring that people can access and actively participate in the health insurance policy.

Along with that, raising awareness, role and responsibility of Party committees and authorities at all levels in strictly implementing legal policies, programs and plans on health insurance of the State, province and industry...

At the same time, the Social Insurance cooperates with the Health sector to create conditions to help health facilities examine and treat health insurance patients to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment, helping people to access convenient and convenient health services, receive the best health care to feel secure and agree to participate in health insurance in a sustainable manner.

Article and photos: Hanh Chi

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