Attending the meeting at the VSS agency were Mr. Le Van Phuc - Head of Department of Pharmacy and Medical Supplies cum in charge of the Social Insurance and Health Insurance Implementation Department; Mrs. Nozomi Iwama - Deputy Chief Representative of JICA Office in Vietnam. Attendants from the Japanese side were Mr. Shimizu Akira - Chief Representative of JICA and representatives of related professional social insurance departments.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Shimizu Akira - JICA Chief Representative sent his sincere thanks to VSS for actively coordinating with JICA's experts to implement the Project over the past 2 years. He expressed his belief that with the remarkable development of VSS in recent years, the implementation of the policy on health insurance would become more successful.

Mr. Shimizu Akira - Chief Representative of the JICA Vietnam Office speaking at the online meeting

Reporting on the project in general, Mr. Hironari Onishi - Team Leader of SHIP said, on the basis of the current state of the health insurance system and the aging of the population as well as the directions and policies in implementing health insurance of the Vietnamese Government and receiving comments from the Ministry of Health (MOH) and VSS, the program has proposed a strategic plan to improve the health insurance system of Vietnam in the coming time.

Accordingly, the project has 7 outputs, of which two are directly related to VSS: VSS will be in charge of improving the information system on review of health insurance claims and proposing solutions to expand coverage of health insurance. The MOH will implement 4 outputs, including: Determining the best evidence-based payment method for medical expenses; developing basic health service packages to be covered by the health insurance fund based on evidence; strengthening capacity and efficiency of IT application in service delivery and health insurance payment management; Strengthen the functions and improve the capacity of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on health insurance policy.

At the same time, 7 specific goals were set out including: To improve health quality; to improve the access to health facilities; to promote financial autonomy of health care facilities; to expand application scope and improve reliability of health insurance; to strengthen the management and financial stability of the Health Insurance Fund; to promote evidence-based policy-making and strengthen the council functions; to consider solutions and policies to cope with the super aging society.

Expressing appreciation towards the project's implementation process at the VSS over the past time, Mr. Le Van Phuc affirmed that VSS has closely been cooperating with the JICA experts to present the report. According to Mr. Phuc, the report faithfully describes the health insurance policy in Vietnam. “You have analyzed the problem of policies that the Vietnamese side needs to adjust. Your proposals for the Project are basically close to reality and the problem that Vietnam needs to address.”, Mr. Phuc said.

Overview image of the meeting

However, for the future development strategy of the Program, Mr. Phuc said that the two sides need to continue to discuss and carefully consider some issues such as long-term report data; analysis of average life expectancy in Vietnam; in-depth analysis on health insurance, etc.

In the next stage, the VSS hopes that JICA continues to support in building and completing the national database; completing the electronic inspection model while VSS is perfecting the payment method of DRG instead of the current one; and support in expanding sustainable health insurance coverage with the view to reaching the Government's target of 95% by 2025.