Deputy General Director of Vietmam Social Security Dao Viet Anh made the statement at an online conference on the morning of August 3 to evaluate the implementation of the social and health insurance policies in the first seven months of this year as well as deploy the tasks for the last five months.

The conference was co-chaired by Anh and Chu Xuan Dzung, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee of Ha Noi.

Delegates at the online conference

Anh said the development of voluntary social insurance has been boosted in recent years in the city. However, it is believed to be not commensurate with the potential.

Therefore, communication needs to be enhanced to approach more people, he said.

Basically, the branch is assessed to have implemented the health insurance policy well, he added.

There is only a group of students that have not fully participated in health insurance, so, it is necessary to strive to raise this rate to 100 per cent, he said.

Anh told the committee to promote the application of information and technology and reform administrative procedures associated with the implementation of the Government’s Project 06 to better serve participants.

Also at the conference, Dzung said there are still many difficulties and challenges for the branch to complete the assigned targets of social and health insurance this year.

Therefore, Dzung, director of the city’s Department of Social and Health Insurance Implementation, told relevant agencies to continue to seriously implement the instructions of the city’s Party Committee, the People's Council, and the People's Committee on social insurance and health insurance.

It should focus on implementing solutions to rapidly increase the number of people participating in social and health insurance by promoting communication and advocacy to employers and employees to comply with regulations and laws on participation in compulsory social insurance, he said.

Delegates at the conference

The branch should regularly coordinate with the city’s Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Department, the city’s Police Department and relevant agencies to conduct more inspections and deal with units which failed to make payments of social and health insurance, in accordance with the provisions of the 2015 Penal Code, he said.

The city’s Police Department needs to investigate and prosecute those units and enterprises that failed to make payments of social and health insurance as per regulations, he said.

Dzung also assigned the city’s Department of Health and relevant agencies to urgently review shortcomings and propose solutions to ensure the operation of medical facilities and improve the quality of medical examination and treatment, covered by health insurance, to meet the needs of local people.

Besides, the relevant agencies have to enhance the implementation of level-four online public services, increase the application of information technology in professional activities, guide people to install and use VssID - digital social insurance application, and promote payment of social insurance benefits through personal bank accounts, he added.

Achievements and shortcomings

Statistics show that by the end of July, the city’s health insurance coverage rate was 91.4 per cent of the population with over 7.5 million participants, reaching 98 per cent of the assigned plan.

The number of people participating in compulsory social insurance was more than 1.9 million people, accounting for 39 per cent of the labour force and reaching 97.5 per cent of the assigned plan.

Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security Dao Viet Anh delivers his speech at the conference

The number of people participating in voluntary social insurance was 64,301, reaching 87.9 per cent of the assigned plan and accounting for 1.3 per cent of the labour force.

The branch collected more than VND28.7 trillion (US$1.22 billion), reaching 53.86 per cent of the assigned plan so far this year.

The branch also made payments of social insurance benefits on time and in accordance with regulations, serving more than 5.4 million people for medical examination and treatment with health insurance.

About 99.9 per cent of local units and enterprises participating in social insurance have made electronic transactions.

The branch has provided level-four online public services in the field of social and health insurance. (Level-four online public service allows users to fill in and send application forms to the wards’ People’s Committees entirely online. The forms are then processed online and users can pay the fees online.)

Chu Xuan Dung, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee of Ha Noi at the conference

It has also promptly handled dossiers on the National Public Service Portal and implemented the tasks assigned under the Government's Project 06.

In the first seven months of this year, the branch processed more than 15.7 million dossiers, an increase of over 3.5 million compared to the same period last year.

However, shortcomings are still present. Accordingly, in terms of the development of participants, the growth rate is still slow.

Some local businesses have faced many difficulties in production and business due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially tourism and commercial enterprises.

Thus, it has caused them trouble in making payments of social and health insurance for their employees.

Besides, there are businesses that take advantage of the pandemic to deliberately delay the payments of social and health insurance contributions and fail to comply with inspection conclusions.

Many local medical facilities have not seriously implemented the formulation of plans and solutions to manage and effectively use the allocated funds for medical examination and treatment covered by health insurance.

Several local hospitals have been slow to transfer health insurance data to the health insurance assessment system. A number of local medical facilities do not yet accept chip-based identity cards for examination and treatment instead of health insurance cards./. VSS