To do that, the branches are required to firmly grasp data and analyse the data of each group of participants in each locality, said Deputy General Director of Viet Nam Social Security Tran Dinh Lieu at an online conference on November 16, to discuss solutions to raise the number of health insurance participants.

Lessons show that it is necessary to be very proactive, anticipating changes in the policy and fluctuations in economic and social issues to have an early plan to increase health insurance participants, he said.

Sending the report promptly and proactively consulting with the local administration are believed to be important factors to synchronously implement solutions to increase the health insurance participants, he said.

Illustrative image (VSS)

Lieu also said the branches need to focus on strengthening solutions to rapidly increase health insurance participants in the last months of this year in order to achieve the target of health insurance coverage in 2021.

The rate of students participating in health insurance must reach 100 per cent, he said.

Besides, the branches have to implement health insurance policies for children under 6 years old; as well as encouraging people to participate in health insurance at different durations of three months or six months, he said.

The branches in Ho Chi Minh City, and Binh Duong and Long An provinces need to actively re-check data from tax agencies to implement solutions to increase health insurance participants, he said.

The branches have to enhance dissemination and communication to attract more participants to the health insurance scheme, arrange more staff to monitor in each locality to remove difficulties related health insurance participation, he added.

Moreover, the branches are ordered to build a mechanism and create favourable conditions for social insurance agents to effectively operate, raising the income for the agents’ staff and encourage them to better mobilise people to participate in health insurance, he said.

Lieu also said that some provinces and cities have successfully implemented solutions to increase health insurance participants.

The localities include Lam Dong Province, Thanh Hoa Province, Thai Nguyen Province, Quang Binh Province and Bac Lieu Province, he said.

There was an increase of 159,000 health insurance participants in Lam Dong Province, 133,000 in Thanh Hoa Province, 90,000 in Thai Nguyen Province, 82,000 in Quang Binh Province and 80,000 in Bac Lieu Province compared to the same period of 2020.

Therefore, the localities should share experience with other localities to overcome difficulties together and achieve the goal of increasing health insurance participants by the end of 2021.

Especially, the branch in Nam Dinh Province is the only branch currently exceeding the assigned target of health insurance participants so far in the country.

Tran Van Dung, director of the branch in Nam Dinh Province, said the branch has closely followed the policy of building new-style rural areas and regularly consulted with the local administration to have effective solutions in order to increase health insurance participants.

Therefore, the health insurance coverage in the province has reached about 94 per cent of the population, he said.

Data of the Viet Nam Social Security shows that as of November 15, 2021, there were more than 83.8 million people participating in health insurance nationwide, reaching 93.2 per cent of the plan.

It still needs over 6 million people participating in health insurance to achieve the targeted plan by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, some branches have to make many efforts to achieve the plan such as HCM City, Binh Duong, Soc Trang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu, An Giang, Dong Nai and Gia Lai.

The data also pointed out that the number of health insurance participants decreased compared to the same period last year.

The decrease focuses on poor households, ethnic-minority people and people living in disadvantaged areas in the country.

For example, the number of poor households participating in health insurance decreased by 427,000; the number of ethnic-minority people participating in health insurance decreased by 2.7 million; and the number of people living in disadvantaged areas participating in health insurance decreased by 1.5 million.

The reason for the decrease is mainly due to the change in the policy of paying and supporting health insurance, which has had a strong impact on groups of participants, especially ethnic minorities./.