The number of health insurance card holders increased from 7.1 million people in 1995 to 10.4 million in 2000, a surge of 46 per cent.

It jumped to 23.2 million people in 2005; 52.4 million in 2010; 70 million in 2015 and reached more than 85.9 million people in 2019.

During the 1995-19 period, the percentage increased annually by 48 per cent on average. Now about 90 per cent of the population own health insurance cards.

People from poor households, ethnic minority groups, children under six years old and beneficiaries of social policies have their health insurance premiums fully covered.

About 10 million people, accounting for 10 per cent of the population, do not have health insurance cards. They belong to household groups, those working in agro-forestry-fishery sector and living at average income level or labourers of private businesses and students.

Large coverage of health insurance is evidence of efforts of the whole political system, efficiency of communication work as well as quality of health check-ups and treatments. Patients’ trust in health insurance policies has been improved.

Along with increasing the number of health insurance card holders, the social security agency and the health sector have worked together and focused on improving the quality of medical examination and treatment with health insurance by applying a series of innovative measures and reforming administrative procedures.

They also aim at reducing inconvenience to patients by putting the patients at the centre; making innovations in annual hospital assessment, management and supervision methods; launching hospital overload reduction and family doctor projects. 

The healthcare sector has also promoted the application of information technology in hospital and health insurance management to reduce procedures, shorten waiting time of patients and make patient expenses more transparent.

Health insurance card holders have more opportunities to access healthcare services. The number of health examinations and treatments under the health insurance regime has increased rapidly year on year. In 2009, there were 92.1 million medical examinations and treatments conducted under the scheme (85.8 million with outpatients and 6.3 million inpatient visits).

In 2019, the number almost doubled with 186 million medical examinations and treatments.

Up to now, there have been over 1.5 billion health check-ups and treatments conducted every year under the health insurance scheme, with covered expenses of more than VND475 trillion (US$20,4 billion), an average annual increase of 33.1 per cent.

Expenditures on medical examinations and treatments under the health insurance scheme have made up for a large proportion in total spending.

Spending on medical examinations and treatments under health insurance climbed from VND15.5 trillion ($970 million) in 2009 to more than VND100 trillion ($4 billion) in 2019, a more than six-fold increase.

To achieve those results, a series of solutions in fund management have been implemented. In every stage, the social security sector has applied effective management solutions to overcome difficulties and handle problems to achieve the targets./.