E-health insurance cards will replace paper cards as from 2020.

At a briefing in October 2018, Deputy Director General of the Vietnam Social Security (VSS) Dao Viet Anh said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has assigned the VSS to work with relevant ministries, sectors and agencies to build a draft decision on the issuance, management and use of e-health insurance cards.

Phuc requested e-cards be installed with chips and technological solutions that ensure connectivity, safe integration and data sharing among ministries, sectors and localities.

The regular briefing on social and health insurance in October 2018.

The VSS has taken measures to issue e-health insurance cards as scheduled, Anh said, elaborating it has made a draft decision approving the card sample and plan on e-cards issuance, management and use. It has also built a plan to detail the implementation targets and roadmap and stipulate technological solutions for e-health insurance cards. After finishing related procedures, the agency will submit the draft decision to the Prime Minister.

He noted over the last two years, the VSS has boosted IT application in its activities. Issuing e-health insurance cards will be a breakthrough of the sector, and they will bring more convenience for the participants.

Anh stressed that all matters relating to e-health insurance cards will have been completed by January 1, 2020, and these cards will be given to the participants in line with regulations.

At a recent working session with the VSS, Minister-Chairman of the Government’s Office Mai Tien Dung, head of the Prime Minister’s working group, emphasised that social insurance is a crucial social welfare pillar and receives much attention from the Prime Minister. He also said the Government leader highly values the VSS and its Director General Nguyen Thi Minh’s efforts.

In particular, the VSS is one of the agencies making reforms first and applying IT, building a national database on social insurance, sharing information and monitoring the payment of social and health insurance benefits. Its IT system has been implemented from the central level to all the 63 provinces and cities, 709 districts and all healthcare establishments. The time needed for businesses to pay insurance contribution has been cut from 335 hours per year to 45 hours, while the number of sets of administrative procedures has been reduced from 115 to 28. The sector has also built a national database on insurance despite the lack of a general database on population.

Minister Dung said the Prime Minister spoke highly of the VSS and asked the press to popularise the sector’s achievements.

The minister said the most important thing is that the social insurance sector has ensured transparency in its management and activities. It has also managed medical establishments to remove health insurance loopholes that could be abused.

Minister-Chairman of the Government’s Office Mai Tien Dung and other officials visit the VSS’s IT system operation centre.

The social insurance sector ranked second in the Vietnam ICT Index of the Ministry of Information and Communications and first in terms of technical infrastructure in the rankings. According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 Report, social insurance climbed the most among the sectors in Vietnam, up 81 places to 86th position among that of 190 economies.

The national database on insurance currently manages information on more than 94 million people, including 82 million health insurance dossiers. The VSS said it is willing to share the data with other agencies to help it be connected with the national population database.

In 2017, there were 13.9 million people joining in social insurance, 79.9 million in health insurance and 11.8 million in unemployment insurance. The number of health insurance participants reached 82.33 million by the end of last October, raising the health insurance coverage to 87.62 percent of the population.

In the coming years, if health insurance participants haven’t received e-cards, they will still receive benefits as usual as the IT system has their information. They can also check their coverage of benefits or previous medical examinations and treatment on the VSS’s website, according to the agency./.