Under the leadership and direction of the Party, National Assembly, Government, Prime Minister, Party committees and authorities at all levels; the active coordination and support of agencies and organizations; With the solidarity, unity, and efforts to overcome difficulties of each civil servant, public employee, and workers, the Vietnamese social insurance industry has successfully accomplished dual goals: both completing the tasks in difficult and challenging conditions and successfully and effectively implementing policies to support employees and employers affected by the Covid-19 epidemic in accordance with Resolutions and Decisions of the National Assembly, Government, Prime Minister, leaving good impressions, highly appreciated by leaders of the Party, State, branches and levels; at the same time improving the prestige and position of the Vietnam's social insurance industry.

On December 8, 2021, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a meeting with Vietnam Social Security (VSS); at the meeting, he assessed that VSS is one of the leading agencies in the application of information technology, which timely and effectively deployed online public services, electronic payment, electronic transactions, interconnection, settle administrative procedures on the national data axis, deployed VssID - digital social insurance application. In particular, the electronic database system of the Vietnamese social insurance industry has effectively supported epidemic prevention and control activities over the past time.

Entering the new year 2022, let's review 10 outstanding events in 2021 of the Vietnam's social insurance industry.

1. Quick and flexible adaptation to the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic, best ensuring the interests of participants and beneficiaries of the policy

In the face of a complicated and prolonged epidemic situation, Vietnam Social Security always closely follows actual developments, promptly deploys flexible solutions to best ensure the interests of participants and safety in the prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic, such as: promoting non-cash payment, lump-sum payment of 2 months' pension, paying pension at home, flexibility in referral for medical examination and treatment under health insurance, etc.

Illustrative image (VSS)

In 2021, it is estimated that the whole Industry has: processed about 95,762 applications for monthly pension and social insurance benefits; ensured timely and safe payment for about 3.2 million people receiving monthly pensions and social insurance benefits; paid 6,698,566 turns of people enjoying sickness, maternity, convalescence and health rehabilitation benefits; 626,397 people enjoy unemployment insurance; 118.721 million inpatient and outpatient medical care visits.

These results once again show the political determination of the whole industry in ensuring the interests of policy participants and beneficiaries. Accordingly, the people's welfare and interests continue to be better cared for during the pandemic, contributing to strengthening and creating more people's confidence in the social security policies of the Party and State.

2. Proactivity in consulting and drastic in implementation; swift and successful implementation of support policies for employees and employers affected by the pandemic.

Concerned with prolonged difficulties caused by the pandemic, the VSS has actively advised and coordinated with ministries to submit to the Government and Prime Minister for promulgating support policies on social and unemployment insurance to resolve difficulties for employees and employers. Especially, the support package of over VND 30,000 billion from the Unemployment Insurance Fund according to Resolution No. 116/NQ-CP of the Government is the largest direct cash support package ever.

Illustrative image (VSS)

In order to deploy the fastest and most effective support package to employees, employers, the VSS has focused on mobilizing all available resources to speed up disbursement; brought into play the advantages of the information technology system, minimizing payment stages, procedures and time, achieving the following results:

- For Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP of the Government: After only 07 days, the VSS completed the reduction of the contribution to the occupational accident and disease insurance fund for 375 thousand units, equivalent to 11,238 million employees with an amount of about VND 4,322 billion; has settled for 842 units (with 159,885 employees) to suspend payment of retirement and survivorship funds with an amount of over VND 1,111 billion in 57 provinces and cities, etc.

- For Resolution No. 116/NQ-CP of the Government: After only 05 days, the VSS completed the announcement of adjustment of the payment rate (reduced from 1% to 0%) into the UI fund for 363.6 thousand employers, equivalent to 9,676 million employees with an amount of about 7,595 billion VND; delivered support for 12,941,196 employees with an amount of about 30.73 trillion VND.

3. The number of voluntary social insurance participants continues to increase in the context of the country's general difficulties

In 2021, in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic having a profound and comprehensive impact on all aspects of socio-economic life, Vietnam's social insurance industry has strived to achieve the highest level of assigned targets and tasks. By the end of December 31, 2021, the number of social insurance participants is more than 16.5 million, an increase of 2.1% compared to 2020, reaching 33.75% of the labor force in the age group; the number of unemployment insurance participants is nearly 13.4 million, an increase of 0.4% compared to 2020, reaching 27.33% of the labor force in the age group; The number of health insurance participants is more than 88.8 million people, an increase of 0.9% compared to 2020, reaching the coverage rate of 91.01% of the population.

Illustrative image (VSS)

Notably, the number of voluntary social insurance participants continued to grow strongly, which is one of the bright spots of the industry, recognized and highly appreciated by the 15th National Assembly deputies. In 2021, there are more than 1.4 million voluntary social insurance participants, an increase of 28% compared to the same period in 2020, reaching 2.94% of the labor force in the age group are farmers and workers in the informal sector, 1.94% higher than the target assigned in Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW (1% in 2021).

4. An important step in the digital transformation of Vietnam's social insurance industry

In 2021, the industry's digital transformation has undergone a significant transformation: a Master Plan on Digital Transformation has been developed, a Plan for information technology application and development of the Digital Government for the period of 2021-2025 has been developed; has completed a database of more than 98 million people, which is the foundation of the national insurance database (one of the six national databases creating the foundation for the development of e-Government); communicated and shared data with ministries and branches (especially for the national population database of the Ministry of Public Security, the results so far have authenticated the information of nearly 10.3 million citizens with the national population database).

Illustrative image (VSS)

In particular, the application "VssID - Digital Social Insurance" is estimated to have had nearly 25 million people installed and used by the end of December 31, 2021 to manage and control the process of participating, benefiting from policies, and implementing public services; more than 500 thousand times using the image of the health insurance card on the application to receive medical care nationwide. It can be seen that the VssID application has brought about initial success in the digital transformation of Vietnam's social insurance industry.

Thanks to the above results, for 4 consecutive years from 2017 to 2020, the VSS is evaluated as an effective implementation agency and ranked 2nd in the ministries and sectors; ranked first in the e-Government ranking of government agencies.

5. The Government promulgates the Decree regulating the national database on Insurance

According to Decree No. 43/2021/ND-CP dated March 31, 2021 of the Government stipulating the National Insurance Database, the VSS is assigned to be the governing body of the National Insurance Database.

The National Insurance Database includes 9 groups of information, in which groups of information on social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance are the original data. This is the Government's database, which is built uniformly across the country, shared by agencies, organizations and individuals in order to provide accurate and timely insurance information for state management, meeting the requirements of socio-economic development and legitimate requirements of agencies, organizations and individuals.

Illustrative image (VSS)

Notably, implementing Decree No. 43/2021/ND-CP, in the face of complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, many provinces and cities have the need to exploit data and authenticate information of participants, beneficiaries of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance, the Vietnamese social insurance industry has proactively provided this information in a timely manner for localities to use in making test lists; vaccination list; identify background disease information; quickly track and trace patients F0, zoning in industrial parks, export processing zones, labor use units, etc. to serve the effective prevention and control of epidemics.

6. Innovating, creating, strengthening inspection and examination by electronic method, flexibly adapting to the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic

In the past year, flexibly adapting to the situation of the Covid-19 epidemic, the inspection and examination work of the Vietnam's social insurance industry has focused on innovation from methods of economic concentration, combining traditional inspection system with electronic inspection, increasing efficiency and quality, reducing human resources, and time for economic recovery (reduced by about 48%, from 20 hours to 10.5 hours).

Promoting inspection and examination using electronic method has built 121 signs to identify violations in the implementation of policies and laws on social, unemployment and health insurance; strengthened inspection and supervision of health insurance premiums on the electronic health insurance assessment system (connected to more than 12,500 medical facilities, nearly 100%), refused to pay, reduced expenditures of the health insurance fund (of 626.62 billion VND, estimated by the end of November 2021). This is the basis to meet the task of specialized inspection in the field of settlement and payment of social and health insurance regimes and policies if assigned without increasing the organization and staff.

7. Exceeded targets assigned by the Government on payment of social and unemployment insurance benefits through non-cash payment means

Implementing the Government's Resolution No. 02/NQ-CP on continuing to perform the main tasks and solutions to improve the business environment and enhance national competitiveness in 2019 and orientation to 2021, the VSS has issued a plan to accelerate the payment of pensions, social insurance benefits and unemployment benefits without using cash through the banking system in the period 2020-2025.

In 2021, the Covid-19 epidemic continues to develop complicatedly, in order to ensure the safety of participants when receiving social, unemployment insurance, the VSS has implemented numerous solutions to promote non-cash payments. As a result, over 57% of people receiving pensions, social insurance benefits, and unemployment benefits received through personal accounts in urban areas, an increase of 9% compared to 2020 (an increase of 28% compared to 2019 - the time of implementation of Resolution No. 02/NQ-CP), exceeding 7% of the target assigned by the Prime Minister.

In particular, the non-cash payment has been promoted by the VSS when implementing the support package from the UI Fund according to Resolution No. 116/NQ-CP of the Government and is of great importance, not only helping the Industry to timely, accurately, publicly and transparently pay the support, but also ensuring the safety of people's health as they do not have to receive support directly, which limits travel and contributes to the effectiveness of the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic.

8. Innovation of content and forms of communication; flexible adaptation in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic

The industry's communication work continues to be innovated in terms of content, form, method, and flexibly adapts in the context of social distancing. As a result, in 2021 there were: over 72,000 live media conferences with over 1.5 million attendees; more than 2,600 online media conferences were held, hundreds of thousands of media products were shared on the Internet and social networks.

Communication on the mass media continues to be enhanced, especially on television and radio in "golden" time frames, attracting a big number of viewers and listeners. During the year, there were over 31,300 propaganda news, articles and reportage on social, health and unemployment insurance published and broadcast by central and local press agencies (an increase of nearly 2 times compared to 2020), on average. Every day, there are about 90 news, articles and reportage in newspapers to spread social and health insurance policies to the people.

Through communication, it has created unity in the leadership and direction of Party committees and authorities at all levels, consensus in the implementation of social and health insurance policies at all levels and sectors; People's awareness of the necessity, meaning, benefits, human values, and superiority of social and health insurance policies has been increasingly enhanced, confidence in the policy continues to be strengthened, contributing to the coverage of social and health insurance, especially voluntary social insurance and household-based health insurance.

9. Support and care services for participants and beneficiaries have been promoted

With the goal of taking people and businesses as the service center, the Vietnam's social insurance industry has taken the lead in building and operating a customer care system that promptly receives answers, supports and advises individuals and organizations participating in social, health and unemployment insurance, creating breakthroughs in the transformation of behavior from administration to service, from passive care to active care, improving service quality for participants of social, health and unemployment insurance.

Results: supported and consulted nearly 500,000 times (up 26%) through the call center system; answered 20,000 questions on the Portal, Fanpage of VSS. In particular, in 2021, the Vietnam's social insurance industry has issued the Process of implementing consulting and supporting activities for organizations and individuals in participating and benefiting the regime. The operation of the industry's customer care system is highly appreciated by domestic and international experts.

10. Strengthening external activities and international cooperation in the field of social security

In 2021, the VSS will continue to expand, promote and develop bilateral and multilateral cooperation activities; has gradually affirmed the position and image of the VSS as a friend, reliable partner, active and responsible member of the ASEAN Social Security Association (ASSA), the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and over 50 countries and international organizations.

In the context of being affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, effectively adapting to foreign policy and international integration on a digital platform, the VSS continues to maintain and strengthen online international cooperation activities; has successfully organized the ASSA 38 online conference at Vietnam bridge; created consensus and cohesion between FDI enterprises and the VSS in complying with the law on social and health insurance./.