Quynh Luu District Social Insurance: Raising people's awareness of the role of health insurance

(Baonghean) -Health insurance (HI) plays an important role in caring for and protecting people's health, and has contributed positively to social stability. In Quynh Luu district, this is also an issue that the insurance industry and the government pay great attention to, especially for the near-poor, disadvantaged or those in special communes.

"Salvation" for the sick

For nearly a month now, the Emergency Department of Quynh Luu District General Hospital has received a critically ill patient, Mr. Nguyen Nhat Tien (Quynh Bang Commune). This year, 28 years old, Tien used to be a healthy young man with a stable job in Hanoi. Two months ago, he suddenly suffered a stroke, became unconscious and was diagnosed with permanent pneumonia. His family took him to many hospitals from provincial to central level but the disease still did not improve. Currently, Tien's brain only has about 20% of its life and he is almost in a vegetative state... The family determined that Tien's treatment will be long-term...

Fortunately, Tien has a health insurance card, so the treatment costs are partly covered by insurance. Talking about her son's illness, Ms. Hoang Thi Thuan said: With this serious illness, without insurance, the cost of hospitalization and medicine each day can be up to several million VND and the family really cannot afford it. With health insurance, Tien not only has his hospital expenses paid but also receives regular attention from doctors and nurses in the department...

Representative of HDBank Nghe An Branch presented health insurance cards to students from near-poor households at Quynh Thanh Secondary School (Quynh Luu). Photo: My Ha

Currently, Quynh Luu District General Hospital has 450 - 500 patients coming for medical examination and treatment every day and 95% of patients have health insurance cards. According to Dr. Nguyen Sy Thanh - Director of the Hospital: Although the number of patients without health insurance cards is only a very small part, they are all seriously ill.

The main reason is that these patients do not receive regular health check-ups. By the time they get sick and go to the hospital, the disease has already worsened and the cost of treatment is very high... Mr. Le Thanh Luong (Quynh Lam commune) is also a patient without a health insurance card.

After nearly a week in the surgical department due to injuries after an accident, he said: he deeply understands the disadvantages of patients without health insurance cards when all expenses are paid by the family... After this hospital stay, he also discussed with his wife about buying health insurance cards for both of them because the amount of money spent each year is not much but the "benefits" are huge.

Patients without health insurance cards will be affected even more because from June 1, 2017, all medical facilities will officially apply new prices for more than 1,900 medical services, including: Maximum price range for medical examination and health check-up services; bed-day treatment services; technical services, testing... The new regulation will also adjust hospital fees for those who have not participated in health insurance, or have a card but go to medical examination or use services not covered by the health insurance fund (excluding examination at voluntary examination departments, upon request). Some procedures and surgeries will also be adjusted to increase prices by about 20-30% compared to current prices.

According to the Ministry of Health, this adjustment of medical service prices is to create equality between people with health insurance cards and those without, in order to encourage people to participate in health insurance. Currently, according to statistics from the Vietnam Social Security, the number of people participating in health insurance is 82% of the population, so there are still 18% of the population that have not participated in health insurance. In fact, many families of patients have not participated in health insurance, so when they have serious illnesses, it becomes difficult to treat them, many people have had to mortgage their assets, thereby realizing the value of a health insurance card.

Raise awareness about buying health insurance cards

Since 2012, the Politburo has issued Resolution No. 21 - NQ/TW "on strengthening the Party's leadership over social insurance and health insurance in the period of 2012 - 2020". In accordance with this Resolution, in recent times, the People's Committee of Quynh Luu district has simultaneously deployed many solutions to raise awareness of departments, branches and the masses about the role of social insurance and health insurance.

In addition, the district directed units to include indicators on implementing insurance policies in the annual socio-economic development plan, focusing on prioritizing the allocation of state budget and other budget sources to pay social insurance and buy health insurance cards for subjects according to State regulations and creating favorable conditions for all people to participate in and enjoy social insurance and health insurance policies and regimes.

Currently, the issuance of health insurance cards to policy beneficiaries has been coordinated by the Social Insurance agencies with the Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs to timely issue to beneficiaries, ensuring that 100% of meritorious people, relatives of meritorious people, social security, and the poor have health insurance cards. In addition, the rate of people with health insurance cards has also increased rapidly every year, the rate of people with health insurance cards in the whole district accounts for about 82%.

The insurance industry has also coordinated with the health sector and related sectors to improve the quality of health services. The rights of health insurance card holders are increasingly guaranteed due to the expansion of payment scope, especially for vulnerable groups in society (the poor, ethnic minorities, children). Administrative procedure reform, application of information technology in management, reduction of waiting time, avoiding inconvenience for patients.

However, in addition to the achieved results, the development of health insurance cards in Quynh Luu still faces certain difficulties when in some places, the dissemination and implementation of the Party's policies and the State's laws on health insurance are not extensive, are still formal, not regular, and lack coordination between relevant agencies.

The student insurance card will help poor students in Quynh Thanh commune - Quynh Luu have good health care conditions, reducing the burden when they are sick. Photo: Thu Huong

At the same time, the awareness of some people, especially in special areas, about the role of health insurance cards is still low and they have not seen the benefits of health insurance. In Quynh Thanh commune, although in the past, the district government and departments have given many priorities, giving hundreds of health insurance cards to people from near-poor families, the number of people participating in voluntary health insurance is still very low, the rate of people with health insurance cards has not reached 60%.

Sharing the reason, Mr. Ho Xuan Xuyen - Chairman of the Commune People's Committee said: Besides economic reasons and having many children, the main reason is that people have not seen the great benefits of the health insurance card. This has, in fact, greatly affected people's health care and it will be more difficult if people unfortunately get sick and have to go to medical facilities for treatment.

According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Tho - Director of Quynh Luu Social Insurance: To overcome these realities, in 2017, the insurance industry mobilized all employees to save one day's salary to buy 1,600 health insurance cards to give to near-poor households. Many units also supported to buy more than 1,000 health insurance cards to give to disadvantaged people, especially students.

In the long term, local authorities and the insurance industry will continue to strengthen propaganda work, raise people's awareness of insurance policies and have many policies to support people to buy health insurance cards, especially family health insurance. Strengthen human resources and facilities, and techniques for grassroots health care to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment for people in general and people with health insurance cards in particular, to better meet people's needs for medical examination and treatment.

My Ha - Thu Huong