Over the past few years, the expansion of entitlements to health insurance has allowed people with health insurance cards to access the most advanced medical technology services. Currently, most medicines and technical services are covered by the Health Insurance Fund when one gets examined at primary level. In spite of low contribution rates, when unfortunately suffering from diseases, including dangerous and costly ones, participants of health insurance will be given thorough medical examination and treatment regardless of being rich or poor. People with health insurance cards getting examined at primary level are covered by the Medical Insurance Fund at 80%, 95% or 100% depending on the target group. Medical examination and treatment with health insurance cards helps the poor and near poor reduce the burden on their families when they are sick.

Thanks to the direction of the Party and the State, the involvement of ministries, sectors and localities and the benefits of participating in health insurance, the number of participants in Vietnam has been increasing over the past time. By the end of June 2020, there had been more than 86 million participants in health insurance nationwide, reaching the health insurance coverage at 90% and exceeding the assigned target by the Prime Minister in Decision 1167/QD-TTg. In which, participants of household health insurance reached 17.5 million, an increase of 1.7 million people compared to 2018 (equivalent to an increase of 10.8%). In which, the poor, ethnic minorities, children under 6 years old and social policy beneficiaries have been fully covered by the State as for the payment of health insurance premiums. Merits of medical examination and treatment with health insurance are relatively comprehensive and increasingly expanded. The list of medicines, medical supplies and technical services is used basing on professional capacity and technical routes to ensure maximum benefits of health insurance cardholders when undergoing medical examination and treatment.

Along with expanding the number of participants in health insurance, the social security agency and the health sector have coordinated and focused on improving the quality of medical examination and treatment with health insurance with a series of innovative measures, reforming administrative procedures and reducing troubles for patients such as: Considering the patient as the center; Innovation in management, methods of annual hospital examination and assessment; Running projects on reducing workload and family doctors. Especially, promoting the application of information technology in management in hospitals and health insurance in order to minimize procedures and patients’ waiting time; Publicizing the lists of expenses.

According to the data on the Health Insurance Assessment Information System updated until 3pm on March 20, 2020, the data of medical examination and treatment with health insurance nationwide from January 1 to March 20, 2020 is as follows: Visits of medical examination and treatment was 34,486,954 (in which the number of outpatient visits was 31,510,845 and that of inpatient visits was 2,976,109). The total expenses of medical examination and treatment with health insurance that the facility proposed to be funded reached 19,300 billion VND (in which the outpatient expenses were 11,717 billion VND and the inpatient ones were 7,583 billion VND).

In particular, the number of visits to medical examination and treatment with the health insurance that the facility proposed to be funded in January and February was 26,693,949, an increase of 198,319 compared to the same period last year (an increase of 0.7); The total proposed expenses for the social security agency to pay were VND 14,846 trillion, an increase of VND 0.912 trillion compared to the same period last year (an increase of 6.5%).

As of June 2020, Vietnam Social Security has settled nearly 2 million people with sickness benefits, an increase of 186,088 (12%) over the same period in 2019; with the contributions to the sickness and maternity fund of VND 768,211,161,019, an increase of 19% over the same period of 2019.

At the same time, the health insurance fund has covered for nearly 100 patients with the costs of medical examination and treatment up to billions of VND; and 12 patients with a total coverage of over 2 billion VND for each term.

It can be seen that the health insurance policy has gradually affirmed and promoted its role as one of the main pillars of the social security system, a significant health financing mechanism to assist people when they are sick or suffering from diseases or accidents, preventing poverty. With countless efforts, Vietnam Social Security expressed their desire to strengthen the protection, care and improvement of people's health, moving towards universal health insurance coverage to be achieved in the near future./.