Ministry of Health denies information that hospital fees are 100 times higher than actual usage prices

At the press conference on the morning of June 29, Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien, Director of the Department of Financial Planning (Ministry of Health) informed that Circular 15 of the Ministry of Health, newly issued on May 30, 2018, adjusted the prices of 88 medical services based on a survey by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and Vietnam Social Security on services, calculating actual costs and agreeing on the principles of price adjustment of some services, focusing on services with large usage. On that basis, the Ministry of Health issued Circular No. 15/2018/TT-BYT to replace the above Circular 37, compared to Circular 37.

Accordingly, 70 services are adjusted down by an average of 5% to 24%, including: medical examination prices, bed day prices and test prices. There are 9 services adjusted up by about 5%, including intensive care bed prices and emergency resuscitation beds. Adding prices for 9 new technical services to help patients participating in health insurance get paid.

The Ministry of Health also said that this price adjustment only includes direct costs, special allowances and salaries, excluding management costs according to the roadmap. In particular, salaries are still calculated at the old basic salary level of 1,150,000 VND instead of 1,390,000 VND according to the Government's adjustment.

Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien said that this price adjustment will reduce the situation of prescribing unnecessary techniques and tests, contributing to balancing the Health Insurance Fund by 2020. For medical examination and treatment facilities, the impact will be a reduction in revenue from medical services. In addition, the adjusted services are mostly services related to hospital beds, diagnostic imaging and testing, so the prescription of unnecessary services will be reduced.

The Ministry of Health will direct hospitals to increase cost savings to improve service quality, and at the same time, for expenses to ensure regular operations of the unit, if the revenue is not guaranteed, the unit will be guaranteed by the State budget according to the current budget management decentralization. On the patient side, the service price has decreased, so the patient's co-payment has decreased, the adjustment also increases the benefits of people with health insurance cards.

Using a price 100 times higher is incorrect.

At the press conference on the morning of June 29, Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien said that in determining the prices of materials and chemicals to calculate service prices, the Ministry of Health based on the winning bid results of hospitals, both central and local, and the winning bid results from local centralized bidding; not taking the average price of the winning bid results to determine on the basis of 2 rounds: the first round compares the average price with the winning bid prices of the units, eliminating winning bid prices that are higher or lower than 25%, only retaining winning bid prices that are higher or lower than 25% to calculate the average price, as the basis for calculating costs and deciding on prices.

Thus, the opinion that the price level is 100 times higher is incorrect (the Social Insurance has sent a dispatch to the Deputy Prime Minister to correct this information); the prices, higher and lower levels as reported in the press have been excluded when calculating the average price.

Mr. Nam Lien also said that the opinion that the economic-technical norms (KT-KT) for calculating prices are not close to reality, mainly based on survey results of upper-level hospitals is incorrect. Because, to come up with this price, it is necessary to base on the actual survey results at about 30 hospitals, synthesizing reports of 4 special-class hospitals, 56 class I hospitals, 140 class II hospitals, and more than 250 class III hospitals.

“In each hospital class, there are hundreds of hospitals. The Law on Health Insurance stipulates that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance issue unified prices according to hospital class, so there will be hospitals whose actual usage is lower or higher than the average standard,” said Mr. Lien.

The opinion that most hospitals have degraded facilities and old equipment is incorrect and denies the investment interest of the Party, the State, and localities in the health sector.

Mr. Lien said that in recent times, the government has invested in upgrading over 550 district hospitals and nearly 200 provincial hospitals. Hospitals have mobilized capital and borrowed capital for investment, and have modern infrastructure. Only a few district hospitals have not yet received investment; patient satisfaction assessment results show that the rate of patients satisfied with hospital facilities is increasing.

Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien said that Circular 37 on adjusting hospital fees is an important step forward in the roadmap to correctly and fully calculate medical service prices; increase the benefits of health insurance card holders, encourage lower-level facilities to develop techniques; contribute to increasing the rate of people participating in health insurance./.