In the first 6 months of the year, Nghe An had a deficit of nearly 752 billion VND in health insurance examination and treatment.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and General Director of Vietnam Social Security Nguyen Thi Minh chaired the conference. At Nghe An bridge, comrade Le Minh Thong - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired; also attending were representatives of relevant departments, branches and sectors and leaders of some districts, cities and medical units.

Nghe An bridge attended the online conference. Photo: Thanh Chung

According to the Report at the Conference, in the first 6 months of this year, it is estimated that there were over 84.9 million health examinations and treatments covered by health insurance, including 77.3 million outpatient visits and 7.6 million inpatient treatments. Accordingly, the amount spent on health examinations and treatments covered by health insurance was over 47.3 trillion VND, with a fund utilization rate of 122.57%.

Among 60/63 provinces and cities that spent more than the fund used during the period, Nghe An continued to be the leading unit with a deficit of nearly 752 billion VND, followed by Thanh Hoa, Quang Nam, Thai Binh...

Statistics also show that in the first 6 months of this year, the proportion of health insurance examination and treatment at the commune level only accounted for more than 18% of the total health insurance examination and treatment at all levels, with the expenditure of 1,220 billion VND, accounting for 2.6% of the total health insurance examination and treatment expenditure.

From this reality, Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien once again affirmed: Improving the quality of health insurance examination and treatment at the grassroots level is an urgent requirement that not only contributes to improving people's primary health but also reduces medical examination and treatment costs, ensuring a balance in the health insurance examination and treatment fund in localities.

The conference focused on analyzing the biggest difficulties and obstacles in implementing health insurance examination and treatment at the grassroots level: the quality of medical examination and treatment at the grassroots level is still limited, the situation of medical examination, prescription and drug dispensing at many commune health stations is still inadequate.

Besides, there are other reasons such as: cross-line medical examination and treatment policy, hospital autonomy mechanism, chronic disease management policy in the community, inspection and supervision work.

Medical examination and treatment for people at Kim Lien Commune Health Station, Nam Dan District. Photo: Thanh Chung

To enhance the effectiveness of medical examination and treatment at the grassroots level, it is necessary to pay special attention to investing in facilities and equipment along with training human resources with expertise to meet the requirements.

Concluding the conference, Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien stated: Strengthening grassroots healthcare is the right policy. In carrying out this task, the role of grassroots Party committees and authorities is decisive.

To improve the quality of health insurance examination and treatment at the grassroots level, in the coming time, the Ministry of Health will promote training and coaching in family medicine and non-communicable disease management. In addition, the Ministry will focus on sending central, provincial and district-level officials to train and guide at health stations.

The financial solutions to be implemented are to move towards a capitation payment method; encourage public and private health care and private investment in family doctor clinics... Currently, the Ministry is developing two software programs on patient health record management and commune health station management to improve the capacity of commune health stations./.