The Ministry of Health will review the list of insured drugs.

Faced with the risk of the insurance fund going bankrupt due to overspending, believed to be caused by the list of expensive drugs, Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said she will review the foreign drugs that insurance must pay for.

At the meeting to discuss the project to implement the roadmap for universal health insurance for the period 2012-2015 and 2020, analyzing the reasons for the insurance fund's deficit, Mr. Nguyen Minh Thao, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security, said that too many people wait until they discover they are sick to buy insurance, while the list of drugs covered by health insurance has been expanded to include expensive cancer and cardiovascular drugs.

"With cancer treatment regimens, patients do not buy insurance in advance but wait until they discover the disease, but they still receive payments of up to several hundred million dong each year," said Mr. Thao.



Health insurance benefits will be reviewed. Photo: Thien Chuong.

The Minister of Health said that it is very difficult to withdraw drugs that are already on the list of insurance payments approved by social insurance. However, to prevent overspending, the Ministry of Health will review and rectify the list of expensive foreign drugs currently on the list that health insurance must pay for.

According to the Minister of Health, treating doctors must "pull" and cannot abuse or overtreat. However, in order to "pull" but not harm the patient, the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management must soon develop enough treatment regimens for the specialties so that doctors can base their treatment on them.

Ms. Tien also said that health insurance payments for each participant should be reviewed. "It is impossible for people who pay the minimum insurance premium or who have just joined insurance to enjoy the same benefits as those who have participated in insurance for many years," Ms. Tien said.

Regarding the project to implement the roadmap towards universal health insurance for the 2012-2015 and 2020 periods, the Minister of Health emphasized that in order for the entire population to unanimously participate in health insurance, the quality of examination and treatment for insured patients must first be improved.

According to the project's goal, by 2015, over 75% of the population must participate in health insurance and by 2020, about 90% of Vietnamese people will participate in insurance. Meanwhile, statistics from the end of 2011 show that only nearly 64% of the population participates in health insurance, with the lowest participation group including businesses, near-poor people and voluntary health insurance participants.

According to Ms. Tien, public consensus is an important issue that determines the success of the universal health insurance project. "If you want people to trust and voluntarily buy insurance, the service must be attractive in terms of attitude and service quality," Ms. Tien emphasized.

The Minister said that hospitals should reduce the suffering of patients by adding more examination windows to shorten waiting times. We should not let the image of patients having to go to the clinic from 5-6am, then wait their turn, wait for test results, and line up to buy medicine continue. "I am really upset when I see parents having to hold their children and wait in the hot noon sun, and patients having to lie in double or triple beds," said Ms. Tien.

For the project to be successful, in addition to building trust in the quality of medical examination and treatment, Ms. Tien also requested that localities step up propaganda so that people can see the practical benefits and humane meaning of participating in health insurance, instead of waiting until they discover they are sick to buy insurance.

In Ho Chi Minh City in 2011, more than 4.6 million people out of more than 7.5 million people in the city participated in health insurance, accounting for 61.70%. With this rate, Dr. Nguyen Tan Binh, Director of the Department of Health, said that by 2020, a rate of over 80% of the population having insurance is achievable.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health also improves the quality of treatment to create patient satisfaction by building satellite clinics and implementing the family doctor model.

According to a representative of the An Giang Provincial Department of Health, in order for insurance participants to enjoy more benefits, the province plans to build a model of "family doctors and general practitioners" to examine insurance participants at health stations and private clinics.

According to Vnexpress - nt