Unifying citizen identification number with social insurance code facilitates information lookup and verification

From social insurance code, health insurance card code

Since 1995, Vietnam Social Security has been established and put into operation. Accordingly, the business process for organizing the implementation of social insurance policies has been initially built, with a three-party connection between employees, businesses and social insurance agencies. In particular, the most important data is information about the process of participating in and enjoying social insurance policies of employees; these data are recorded and shown on the social insurance book (in the first stage, recorded by hand). Each social insurance book will be issued with a social insurance code for each employee.

Photo caption — Support people to look up information about social insurance. Photo: XC

Similarly, the health insurance card was also created with the purpose of encoding the contribution and benefit data of health insurance participants, the only difference being the participation of medical examination and treatment facilities (a 4-party relationship, instead of 3 parties as when participating in social insurance). Each health insurance card will include a card code issued to the participant. The health insurance card shows information about: participants (poor, near-poor, children under 6 years old, meritorious people, etc.); place of residence (mountainous areas, islands, areas with especially difficult socio -economic conditions, etc.); place of medical examination and treatment (commune/ward level, Central level); benefit level (rate paid by the health insurance fund);...

On that basis, the Social Insurance agency simultaneously issues two types of social security codes for social insurance and health insurance participants (including: social insurance code and health insurance card code) to manage and organize the implementation of social insurance and health insurance policies for participants. Notably, at this time, the last 10 digits on the health insurance card code are also the social insurance code. Currently, the health insurance card code is also the social insurance code. From the story of managing the business of social insurance codes and health insurance card codes, it seems simple, but has brought many benefits to the people as well as the management agency implementing the policy.

Persistently and persistently build a data warehouse

In 2014, when the amended Law on Social Insurance (effective from January 1, 2016) and the Law on Amendments and Supplements to a Number of Articles of the Law on Health Insurance (effective from January 1, 2015) were passed, they created fundamental changes in the organization and implementation of social insurance and health insurance policies, along with preparing the foundation for building a data warehouse on insurance in the entire System. Specifically, according to the Law on Social Insurance 2014, employees are allowed to keep and manage their own social insurance books (previously, employees' social insurance books were kept and managed by employers); the Law on Health Insurance 2024 officially stipulates the addition of a form of participation in health insurance by household and family members participating in health insurance will have their contribution levels reduced from the second member onwards.

At that time, in order to effectively and promptly implement the above two new regulations of the Law on Social Insurance and Health Insurance, the Vietnam Social Insurance system focused all its efforts on implementing two "major campaigns" nationwide, including: Reviewing social insurance book information to hand over tens of millions of employees participating in self-managed social insurance; Collecting, reviewing, and compiling all data of nearly 97 million people, identifying 24 million households to complete the database serving the implementation of family health insurance.

Basically, after completing these two "major campaigns", the Vietnam Social Security system has initially formed a large database of social insurance and health insurance participants, which is centrally managed through professional software across the system.

Notably, on March 3, 2021, the Government issued Decree No. 43/2021/ND-CP regulating the national database on insurance. Accordingly, the Government assigned Vietnam Social Security as the competent authority for the national database on insurance; to preside over the construction, updating, maintenance, exploitation and use of the national database on insurance. This Decree is of important significance, serving as a legal basis for the construction, collection, updating, maintenance, exploitation, use and management of the national database on insurance throughout the System to serve the management and implementation of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance policies; contributing to promoting administrative procedure reform, strong application of information technology, digital transformation and provision of online public services in the fields of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance, for the benefit of people and businesses.

During the implementation phase of the household data declaration campaign, the ID card number (at that time, the ID card had 9 digits) was one of the bases that the Vietnam Social Security system collected to authenticate the data of social insurance and health insurance participants; along with the household code - issued according to the old household registration book. Also because of this "first-mover" advantage, with the national insurance database already built, as soon as the Government launched Project 06, Vietnam Social Security was one of the first few units to participate in connecting, synchronizing, and authenticating insurance data with the national population database. Thanks to that, to date, Vietnam Social Security has completed the technical connection to share, synchronize, and authenticate data of about 91 million people participating in and enjoying social insurance and health insurance policies, accounting for 99.23% of the total number of participants (excluding armed forces and military relatives). This is also the basis for the Ministry of Public Security to standardize data to serve the management and connection of population data of the industry.

Unify personal identification number and social insurance code

The above steps are the foundation for Vietnam Social Security to continue to concretize the Government's guidelines on reforming administrative procedures in the field of social insurance and health insurance. Accordingly, from August 1, 2025, Vietnam Social Security has deployed the uniformity of personal identification numbers/citizen identification cards and social insurance codes. This uniformity is also a step to prepare for the implementation of electronic social insurance books and electronic health insurance cards from 2026 according to the provisions of the Social Insurance Law 2024 and the Health Insurance Law 2024.

Regarding the implementation method, the Vietnam Social Security system will automatically perform this synchronization. Specifically: For people and employees who have participated in social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance (already have a social insurance code), there is no need to declare or perform any operations. When there is a transaction with the social security agency in performing obligations and rights or when going to see a doctor or receive treatment at a medical facility, the system will automatically synchronize.

For first-time participants, use the personal identification number/citizen identification card to declare, the Social Security agency will automatically issue a code identical to this code, and at the same time connect the account using the VssID application - Social Security number and the citizen's VneID electronic identification account.

In essence, before August 1, 2025, with the synchronization of the insurance database with the national population database, each person participating in social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance had two parallel codes on the Vietnam Social Security system, including: Social insurance code and personal identification number/citizen identification card. Therefore, in the past, people could use their social insurance code or just use their citizen identification card to complete medical examination and treatment procedures, helping to simplify procedures, save time and costs.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/chinh-sach-bhxh-bhyt/dong-nhat-so-can-cuoc-cong-dan-voi-ma-so-bhxh-tao-thuan-loi-tra-cuu-doi-soat-thong-tin-20250927075940104.htm