Khai made his order when he chaired a national online conference to deploy this year’s social and health insurance tasks on the morning of January 17, 2024.

Viet Nam Social Security was required to focus on several major solution groups, he said.

The agency had to closely follow the policies, guidelines and directions of the Party, the National Assembly and the Government to fulfil the targets and tasks of this year.

 Director General of Viet Nam Social Security Nguyen The Manh delivers his speech at the conference

It was also told to proactively evaluate problems in the practical implementation of policies and laws; closely coordinate with relevant sectors to propose amendments and supplements to social and health insurance policies and laws.

The Agency was required to consolidate and streamline the organisational structure and improve the quality of officers and staff; strengthen discipline, promote the role and responsibilities of leaders; clearly assign responsibilities to each officer and member of staff; reward outstanding achievements and strictly handle violations.

It needs to synchronously deploy solutions to develop participants; urge collection and reduce late payments; pay promptly and fully all benefits of social, unemployment and health insurance for participants; and conduct more random inspections to handle violations.

The agency should exploit and maximise the efficiency of information and technology (IT) and the agency’s database to prevent fraud and fund profiteering; implement measures for safe fund management, sustainable and effective growth.

Besides, it was suggested to simplify administrative procedures, expand forms of providing level-4 online services, accelerate digital transformation, complete and connect specialised data systems on social and health insurance as well as the national database on insurance.

The agency had to innovate content, form, and communication methods so that people can reach all information about social and health insurance in the easiest way.

Khai also told ministries, sectors, and People's Committees of provinces and cities to coordinate with the agency to resolve institutional problems within its authority such as synchronously amending and supplementing the Law on Social Insurance, the Law on Health Insurance, the Law on Employment and other relevant laws; complete the national database on population, labour, examination and treatment; integrate targets and plans for developing participants in social, unemployment and health insurance into resolutions and action programmes, identifying that as one of the important targets for socio-economic development of the locality.

He also highly appreciated the achievements and efforts of the agency while it had to face difficulties and challenges last year.

He believed that the agency’s leaders, officers and staff would continue to promote the spirit of solidarity and creativity to perform assigned tasks this year, contributing to ensuring social security, worthy of the trust of the Party, State, Government and people.

Participants at the conference

On behalf of the agency, Director General of Viet Nam Social Security Nguyen The Manh thanked Khai for the directions.

“Viet Nam Social Security will complete action programmes and draw on past experiences to successfully fulfil the mission of this year,” he said.

This year’s tasks were identified to be extremely difficult, but with the results achieved last year, the agency would be determined to successfully achieve assigned targets and tasks, he added.

He also said through the conference, the agency would like to sincerely thank and hope to continue to receive the attention and direction of the Government leaders including Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai.

The agency also sincerely thanked and hoped to continue to receive effective coordination from relevant agencies and local authorities in implementing the policies on social, unemployment and health insurance.

Fulfillments

Manh said the socio-economic situation had many opportunities and challenges that were intertwined last year. There were more challenges than opportunities, directly affecting the implementation of tasks of the agency.

 Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai chairs the conference

However, the agency had still made efforts to carry out its tasks with many flexible and appropriate solutions and achieved many outstanding results.

By the end of last year, the rate of people participating in social insurance accounted for about 39.25 per cent of the working age population, equal to 18.26 million people, meeting the target set out in Resolution No 01/NQ-CP of the Government.

Of which, there were nearly 1.83 million people participating in voluntary social insurance, about 1.42 per cent higher than the target by 2025 set under Resolution No 28-NQ/TW of the Party’s Central Executive Committee.

The rate of unemployment insurance participants reached nearly 31.6 per cent of the working age population, equal to 14.7 million people.

The health insurance coverage rate reached 93.35 per cent, 0.15 per cent higher than the target set under Resolution 01/NQ-CP of the Government.

The amount of late payment of social, health and unemployment insurance accounted for 2.69 per cent of the receivable amount. This is the lowest ratio of late payments since 2016.

The social, unemployment and health insurance policies had been deployed with many solutions; ensuring full and timely benefits of participants; contributing to supporting and stabilising the lives of employees as well as caring for people's health.

The country had more than 174.8 million medical examinations covered by health insurance last year, an increase of over 23.4 million compared to 2022.

The expenditure for examination and treatment for health-insurance participants was about VND124.3 trillion (US$5.02 billion).

There were 13 million participants enjoying social insurance benefits last year.

The financial management and fund management were carried out publicly, transparently, economically and effectively in accordance with regulations, ensuring principles of safety, sustainability and investment optimisation; preventing waste and profiteering of funds.

The total revenue and expenditure of social, health and unemployment insurance funds was nearly VND912 trillion ($37 billion).

The agency had promoted digital transformation and drastically deployed Project 06 (the project on developing and applying the population database and electronic identification and authentication) to create a breakthrough in management, highly appreciated by people and society.

Administrative procedures were simplified to create convenience for people and businesses.

People and businesses could interact and transact online with the social insurance agency 24 hours a day with all procedures provided online.

The administrative procedures had been reduced from 114 procedures (in 2015) to only 25 procedures now.

All 12,851 medical facilities nationwide have applied medical examination and treatment, covered by health insurance, by using chip-based identity cards, shortening time, improving service quality, helping to manage and use the health insurance fund efficiently.

The agency has coordinated with relevant ministries and sectors to authenticate more than 95 million pieces of demographic information, based on the database managed by Viet Nam Social Security, for the national population database, including about 86.6 million people participating in and enjoying social, health, and unemployment insurance policies.

This was an important foundation for connecting, sharing, and serving the agency’s management and reforming administrative procedures.