Health insurance for students: Contributing to the development of a comprehensive education (Illustrative image)

To enjoy numerous health insurance benefits

According to statistics of the VSS, in the school year 2021-2022, the health insurance policy has covered up to 96% of students nationwide with about 18.8 million students participating. That means that nationwide, nearly 19 million students are guaranteed and fully enjoy health insurance benefits as prescribed, in which, if they are unfortunately sick, their medical care costs will be covered by the health insurance fund without the limit of scope, benefit level, which equals up to billions of dong per year. Once participating in health insurance, if students go for proper-level medical care, the health insurance fund will cover 80% of medical expenses within the scope and benefits. In case of improper-level medical care, children will be entitled to the coverage as follows: 40% of inpatient treatment at the central hospital; 100% of inpatient treatment costs at provincial-level hospitals; 100% of the cost at district-level hospitals.

In the process of the health insurance policy being increasingly improved in the direction of benefits, the quality of medical treatment with health insurance has been enhanced and expanded. Accordingly, students also enjoy more benefits from the health insurance policy such as primary health care right at school, participating in medical treatment with health insurance with convenient and transparent procedures; access to high-tech, high-cost medical services, etc. In fact, the health insurance fund has paid for many high school students with incurable and chronic diseases requiring long-term treatment and multiple sessions (such as hemodialysis, cancer treatment, cardiovascular surgery, etc.) with costs ranging from several tens of millions to billions of dong. Thereby, thanks to the health insurance card, many students and their families are proactive about medical expenses, relieve financial burden in the midst of difficulties when unfortunately suffering from illness, or disease, so that students can rest assured and soon return to normal life and study environment.

Notably, while the Law on Health Insurance has not provided detailed regulations for preventive medicine, the students have indirectly enjoyed these benefits through the primary health care at the school. Primary health care in schools is currently operating mainly from the funding source deducted from the medical treatment fund with health insurance for school health activities (including the content of periodic health examination and health classification for students at the beginning of the school year; organizing educational, health and disease prevention consulting activities). Primary health care in schools not only helps students and their families detect disease promptly, takes care and facilitates the treatment of school diseases related to vision, adjustment of the posture of sitting in order to prevent scoliosis, etc. but also prevents many diseases, early detects abnormal signs that can lead to chronic, dangerous incurable diseases, ensuring the health of children in the future.

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Showing kindness and responsibility to the community

According to the provisions of the Law on Health Insurance, students are compulsory subjects to participate in health insurance. Therefore, participating in health insurance is not only a right but also a responsibility to comply with the law, demonstrating the spirit of mutual affection of students through contributing and sharing risks with those who are unfortunate enough to get sick or diseases, etc., especially for the poor and disadvantaged groups in society.

According to the statistics, currently, there are still about 4% of students nationwide who have not participated in health insurance, mainly in the group of university students and students of colleges, intermediate schools and vocational training schools. Among these, some students and parents still do not fully understand the health insurance policy, thinking that it is only necessary to participate in health insurance when sick. We need to understand that health insurance is one of the important social security policies, showing humanity and the spirit of mutual affection and risk sharing.

It can be affirmed that the health insurance policy not only creates an important resource in taking care of students' health, but also contributes to the character education of students right in school. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of 100% of students participating in health insurance for a comprehensive education, so that all of them can receive health care right in school, besides the drastic direction from the Government, the close coordination between the VSS and the Ministry of Education and Training, the participation of the whole society is of great importance, but most crucially, the sense of self-discipline and active participation in health insurance of each student and parent./.