It also needs an additional 627,595 participants in voluntary social insurance and 951,248 participants in unemployment insurance by the end of this year.

Duong Van Hao, head of the Collection, Social Insurance Card and Notebook Management Board, said at an online conference of the sector, held on April 8, that these were targets that branches of Viet Nam Social Security nationwide needed to seriously follow.

To do that, they should focus on a number of solutions, including co-operating with relevant agencies in localities; taking advantage of localities’ policies to attract more participants; speeding up the collection of delayed payments for social and health insurance; reviewing the capacity of agents and staff that were in charge of attracting more participants and suspending disqualified agents and staff, he said.

Hao said the social insurance sector had to review data from the Tax Department of localities as a basis for carrying out the targets.

It was also necessary to review and classify participants in voluntary social insurance to determine potential groups and develop groups in the future, he said.

The management board was compiling a set of rules and scenarios to collect payments of social and health insurance for each group of participants. Based on that, the branches would have their own suitable plan to attract more participants in the localities, he said.

Especially, the branches were told to prepare to collect payments for voluntary social insurance and household health insurance via the VssID application, he said.

The VssID mobile application, which was launched in November 2020, provides essential utilities and information such as monitoring the participation process, policies of social and health insurance, looking up information of social insurance code, social insurance agents, hospitals and health clinics to allow people to use health insurance cards for examination and treatment, household health insurance and 24/7 support services.

Speaking at the conference Nguyen Duc Hoa, director of the Viet Nam Social Security’s Ha Noi branch, said the branch would continue attracting more participants, striving to complete the targets.

The branch would co-ordinate with relevant agencies to conduct inter-sectoral inspections to reduce delayed payments for social insurance; estimate costs of examination and treatment for health-insurance participants this year; ensure the interests of participants as well as strengthen reviews regarding the installation of the VssID application, he said.

Also at the conference, Deputy General Director of Viet Nam Social Security Pham Luong Son said the remaining tasks of this year should focus on draft laws, including the revision of the Law on Health Insurance.

Therefore, it needed branches’ comments on the implementation of the law, the comments should highlight sustainable solutions to develop health insurance in the future and point out solutions to implement the circular on payment by service, he said.

Son tasked the Health Insurance Policy Implementation Board to make a plan to organise an online conference on the implementation of the 2021 cost estimate, he said.

The branches in localities were told to adjust the hospital or health facilities that participants initially registered for medical examination and treatment to suit the regulations, he said.

Son required relevant agencies to build a plan to carry out the national database on social insurance, while the branches were ordered to work with the Health Department in localities to encourage people to use the VssID application, he said.

Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu said the targets this year were quite high, especially the target of reaching over 35 per cent of the labour force to participate in social security network.

Thus, the branches should determine their plan and issue specific solutions to effectively carry it out, he added.

The branches could exchange experiences to effectively reach the set targets, he said.

Deputy General Director Le Hung Son said the branches were told to quickly apply retirement policies for employees at bankrupt enterprises as per regulations as well as work with local authorised agencies to deter enterprises that showed signs of bankruptcy to ensure social-insurance benefits of employees.

In conclusion, General Director Nguyen The Manh said all the branches were told to deploy groups of solutions to attract more participants this year.

The sector was ordered to closely manage beneficiaries, renew services, promote non-cash payments under the direction of the Government, simplify administrative procedures, expand the provision of online public services and integrate additional public services via the National Public Service Portal following the guidance of the Government Office.

It was also necessary to complete and add new features and utilities to the VssID application as well as strengthen dissemination and encourage people to use the application, he said.

Additionally, the sector had to connect and share data with relevant ministries and sectors, he added.

Achievements, shortcomings

Phan Van Men, director of Viet Nam Social Security’s HCM City branch, said that the branch had carried out a lot of solutions to attract more participants in the first three months of this year.

The insurance revenue was higher than the assigned target and the delayed payments of social and health insurance had decreased as scheduled, he said.

There were 527,000 people who registered and installed the VssID application in the city so far. The branch planned to have 4 million people installing the application by the end of this year, he said.

The branch had suspended contracts with 12 health facilities and 33 ward-level health centres due to disqualification, he said.

The management of costs for health-insurance participants’ examination and treatment was tightened to avoid illegally profiting from social insurance, he added.

However, the total number of people participating in social and health insurance was still lower than expected, he said.

Men proposed Viet Nam Social Security to allow the use of health insurance cards on the VssID application to raise the number of people installing the application and considering the residual funds of 2018-19 to support the increase in the use of health insurance cards.

Data from Viet Nam Social Security revealed that the sector has faced difficulties in attracting more participants in the first three months of this year due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of April 7, the number of people participating in social insurance reached over 16 million, accounting for 32.17 per cent of the workforce.

The number of people participating in compulsory social insurance reached 15 million people, a decrease of over 161,000 people compared to the end of 2020.

There were over 1.1 million people participating in voluntary social insurance, a decrease of nearly 39,000 people compared to the end of 2020.

The country now has nearly 87 million people participating in health insurance, accounting for 89.04 per cent of the population.

Notably, the ratio of delayed payments of social insurance in the first months of the year was still high, at approximately VND20.7 trillion (US$899 million).

The number of people applying for one-time social insurance benefits tended to increase. By the end of March 2021, the sector handled 247,783 people receiving one-time benefits, an increase of 19,741 people compared to the same period last year./.