Management of Vietnam health insurance fund should be effective: Official

The Vietnam Social Security should coordinate with local authorities for the effective management and use of the health insurance fund, and to ensure benefits for insured persons, Kinh te & Do thi reported, citing Pham Luong Son, deputy director general of Social Security of Vietnam.

Since 2016, the Vietnam Social Security and the Ministry of Health have launched the Portal of Health Data and the System of Health Insurance Information, Mr. Son said, adding that the assessment software is built in accordance with the assessment protocol for health insurance which has 192 functions in 12 professional processes.

Nearly 89% of Vietnam population is covered with health insurance. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

The papers required for processing a claim must be electronically verified via more than 300 inspection rules which automatically detect duplicate papers, wrong benefits, wrong list, and wrong price.

In 2019, through the system, the amount of unreasonable expenses was reduced by VND1,248 billion (US$54 million), much higher than the ones incurred without electronic assessment.

This is considered a breakthrough of the health sector and social security in the management and quality improvement of health insurance, Mr. Son stressed.

The number of health insurance enrollments in Vietnam reached 85.428 million people, or  89% of the country’s population by the end of June 2020, according to the Government Portal.

The figure suggests that the target of health insurance coverage of 90.7% of the population by the end of 2020 and over 95% by 2025 is feasible.

In 2016, Vietnam's prime minister set the target for health insurance coverage, at 82.2% in 2017, 85.5% in 2018, 88.1% in 2019 and 90.7% in 2020.

By the end of 2019, there were 85.945 million people participating in health insurance, making up 89% of the population. It is estimated that by June 2020, there will be 85.428 million people affiliating in health insurance, an increase of 828,000 people over the same period in 2019 but 517,000 fewer than the end of last year due to the unemployment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Based on such results, the Ministry of Health stated that over 90.7% of the population would participate in health insurance by the end of 2020 and the ratio would increase to 95% by 2025, according to the set goals.