Recently, the Government issued Decree 146/2018/NĐ-CP regulating and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance which stipulates that: "On January 1, 2020 at the latest, Viet Nam Social Security must issue e-health insurance cards for health insurance participants.”

E-cards is installed with chips and technological solutions made by VietNam that ensure connectivity, safe integration and data sharing among ministries, sectors and localities.

The transition to e-health insurance cards in the future will bring great benefits for the social insurance industry, medical examination and treatment and especially those who participate in health insurance. The issuance of e-health insurance cards to help VSS solve the situation of the abuse of health insurance funds by participants because of they must verify the identity of the cardholder through biometric information.

This will prevent the borrowing of health insurance cards, shorten the time to complete procedures for medical examination and treatment, assessment and payment of medical examination costs. In addition, the e-health insurance card is expected to be integrated information about social insurance and unemployment insurance, and will replace the current social insurance book in the future.

With regard to health care facilities, the application of the e-health insurance card will save costs and reduce the time to check procedures, ensure the accuracy of information; and prevent patients from going to health care facilities without treatment schedule.

Electronic health insurance cards will be transferred initiatively by the social insurance offices without requesting additional documents. If  the paticipants do not bring their ID cards, they can be identified by biometric information stored on their e-health insurance cards.

The use of e-health insurance cards will simplify the procedures such as: Print extension of health insurance cards annually; Replacing health insurance cards due to wrong or deviated information, changing the place of initial registration of medical examination and treatment, adjustment of benefits or subjects; Withdrawaling of old health insurance cards; leading to reduce troubles for people, businesses, and improve the business environment, enhance national competitiveness./.