VSS Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu informed about the new health insurance card.

At the conference, VSS provided information on its readiness for the deployment of the new health insurance card model from April 1, 2021 across the country; as well as the situation of organization and implementation of policies on social insurance and health insurance in the first 2 months of 2021 of the Vietnamese social insurance industry and the key tasks and solutions in the coming time.

Simultaneously issuing the new model health insurance card and ensuring benefits for the participants

Accordingly, in terms of the size, the new model health insurance card has a more compact size and a better appearance (equal to the size of a citizen's identity card and some types of ATM cards of commercial banks) to ensure convenience for keeping in wallets, minimizing the cases of lost or damaged health insurance cards.

The health insurance card's paper is also thicker and plastic-laminated to increase durability and hardness, which meets the requirement of long-term use, avoiding water repellency, mold, torn, and blurred ink during use. Thereby, reducing the time and costs of re-issuing the health insurance cards of both the participants and the social insurance agency.

Previously the seal of the social insurance authority of provinces and cities was used, now it is replaced with the seal of the VSS, which prints the title, signature, full name of the Director of the Department of Contribution Collection – Insurance Book and Card (or the person assigned by the VSS General Director to sign the order). This helps to re-issue and change cards more quickly and conveniently at any of the nearest social insurance agencies across the country in case of accidental loss or damage when receving medical care outside the province or traveling, working or studying in another province.

Only 10 characters are printed on the health insurance card which is the participant's social insurance number (replacing 15 characters as before). This helps participants easily identify and be able to look up and check all the information on health insurance cards on the VSS Portal.

The code of health insurance entitlement is moved to the same line as the date of birth, sex, and the code where the subjects live, helping the elderly or those who have not yet had conditions to use the Internet to know information about benefits of health insurance.

The back of the health insurance card prints the “Notes”, which are more specific instructions on how to use the health insurance card to help the participants look up information about the health insurance card and benefits; understand how to contact the social insurance agency for guidance and answer all problems.

As a rule, those who are using the old valid model health insurance card can continue to use the old health insurance card to go for medical examination and treatment under health insurance. At the same time, when the social insurance of provinces and cities uses up the old model health insurance card, the new one will be issued in the following cases:

- Issuing a new health insurance card for the insurer;

- Re-issuing the health insurance card for those who lost the health insurance card;

- Re-issuing the health insurance card due to torn, damaged or changed information on the card.

Mr. Tran Quoc Tuy, Deputy Director of Department of Contribution Collection – Insurance Book and Card delivered a speech at the Conference.

At the conference, VSS Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu affirmed that the granting of new health insurance cards for people will ensure the full benefits of the participants of health insurance as today, without causing difficulties and congestion. The social insurance agency will train local social insurance authorities to implement the issuance of new cards to ensure the interests of the people.

“Any locality with old card embryo (ie the old card is still valid) will still be using the old card, in any locality that runs out of old card embryos, VSS will issue new embryos and new software. It is estimated that this year, about 10 million cards will be issued under the new model. This number is similar to the previous annual card renewal such as issuing new cards to new participants or those who lost the cards, or requiring a new one due to changing the place for initial medical examination and treatment, etc. Therefore, the issuance of a new card this time will cause no disturbance and no extra fees when issuing a new card, and there will be no cases of people massively coming to require new cards, which causes congestion.”, said Mr. Tran Dinh Lieu.

To promptly settle benefits of social, health and unemployment insurance for the beneficiaries

Right from the beginning of the year, in order to create conditions for pensioners and social insurance beneficiaries to enjoy the traditional Tet holiday, VSS has provided funding to pay pension and social insurance benefits for January and February 2021 to the social insurance agencies of provinces and cities in the same period of payment of pension and social insurance allowance in January 2021.

In particular, to continue to effectively implement the dual goal of both preventing and combating the COVID-19 epidemic and well performing the political tasks of the Sector, with the aim of ensuring timely and full benefits for participants and beneficiaries of the policy of social and health insurance, VSS has directed the social insurance agencies of 13 provinces and cities suffering from complicated COVID-19 epidemic developments to pay pension and social insurance benefits in March and April 2021 in the same payment period of March; to build plans to organize home payment in blocked areas for beneficiaries.

Mr. Duong Manh Hung - Director of Customer Service Center delivered a speech at the Conference.

It is estimated that as of February 28, 2021, the entire Vietnam's social insurance industry has settled the enjoyment of benefits of social and unemployment insurance as follows: The number of new beneficiaries of social insurance is 1,564,624, of which the number of monthly beneficiaries is 11,510; the number of people enjoying lump-sum social insurance allowance is 110,525; the number of people enjoying the sickness regime is 1,151,761; The number of people entitled to new unemployment insurance benefits is 237,050; The number of new beneficiaries of unemployment insurance is 82,137.

Regarding the implementation of health insurance policy: In order to ensure the interests of participants of health insurance during the COVID-19 epidemic prevention period, the VSS has actively advised the Ministries and agencies to guide and create the best conditions for participants of health insurance. Accordingly, medical care under health insurance is still guaranteed for participants and not affected by the epidemic. It is estimated that by February 28, 2021, the number of people receiving medical services under health insurance nationwide reached 24,710,139.

The whole industry shall continue to promote the implementation of online public services; to integrate and provide additional public services of the Industry on the NPSP under the guidance of the Government Office.

Overview image of the Conference on providing thematic information on the new model of health insurance card.

To complete and add new features and utilities to the VssID - Digital Social Insurance application in order to bring maximum convenience to users; at the same time, widely deploy the guidance and support for agencies, units, businesses, employees, and people to install and use the application nationwide.

To strengthen connection, exchange and data sharing with ministries and branches; to implement technical connection to exploit and share citizen identification data and the national database on population with the Ministry of Public Security to manage the participants of social, unemployment and health insurance, etc.

To continue to review, simplify and reduce administrative procedures. Accordingly, on February 25, 2021, VSS issued Decision No. 222/QD-BHXH on announcing that administrative procedures were replaced or abolised under the VSS's jurisdiction (from 27 to 25 administrative procedures)./.