1. Increasing the number of participants

The number of participants in social insurance and health insurance has increasedcontinuously. In 1995 (when regulations on social insurance were first enacted), the country had 2.2 million workers participating in compulsory social insurance. The number rose to nearly 16 million by 2019. In 2003, 11.5 million workers participated inhealth insurance nationwide, while the number in 2019 was over 85.9 million (accounting for 90 per cent of Viet Nam’s population). 2009, the first year implementing voluntary insurance, saw 6 million workers participating; the number increased to 13.4 million in 2019.

2. Ensuring benefits of social insurance and health insurance participants

The social insurance sector has paid monthly social insurance allowances for more than 3.2 million participants since 1995, more than 120 million participants have enjoyed one-time premiums and regimes of sickness, maternity and health rehabilitation. The health insurance fund ensures benefits of medical examination and treatment with health insurance for more than 1.924 million people.

3. Administrative reform

In five years from 2014 to 2019, the sector’s administrative procedures reduced from 263 to 27, equivalent to a cut of 76 per cent. Hours to implement an administrative procedure related to social insurance and health insurance fell from 335 to 147.

According to the Doing Business 2019 report on rankings of international organisations, the sector’s tax and social insurance payment indexjumped 35 places compared to 2017. In 2018, the sector was applauded by the Prime Minister’s working group as “one of the leading agencies in implementing administrative reform, applying innovations and developing the national database on insurance.”

4. IT application

The sector’s IT system has been improved to reach international levels which can provide 18 of 28 administrative procedures with an Industry 4.0 ecosystem built to best serve people and businesses.

Viet Nam Social Security in 2017 and 2018 was recognised as the leading public agency in applying IT to develop e-Government by the Ministry of Information and Communications and Viet Nam Digital Communications Association.In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Viet Nam Social Security was placed second in the ranking of information technology readiness index for ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government agencies which offer public services.

5. Completing the database of household health insurance, issuing social insurance ID

Viet Nam Social Security has completed and managed the database of household health insurance using social insurance ID with information of more than 97 million people, equivalent to some 30 million households. This sets a foundation to develop, integrate and complete the sector’s IT application system to build the national database of social insurance and health insurance participants. This is an important database used on the health insurance information management system to monitor expenses for medical examination and treatment with health insurance to improve the management of the health insurance fund by Viet Nam Social Security and to develop and issue social welfare cards for people./.