Many vitamins and supplements have been removed from the list of drugs covered by health insurance.

In 2016, health insurance alone paid more than 1,000 billion VND for vitamins and supplements. That is why the Ministry of Health is planning to “cut” 215 drugs with unclear treatment effectiveness and high prices from the list of drugs covered by health insurance.

On December 26, at a press conference, Mr. Pham Luong Son - Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Security (VSS) said that VSS and the Ministry of Health are jointly reviewing the list of drugs covered by health insurance (HI) and building a new list of drugs.

Health insurance is having to pay large sums of money for vitamins and supportive drugs (Illustration photo IT).

Specifically, in the Draft Circular promulgating the list and rates, payment conditions for modern medicines within the scope of benefits for health insurance participants to replace Circular No. 40 issued in 2014, which is being developed by the Ministry of Health, it is expected to cut 215 medicines with many types of medicines that only have supportive treatment effects, high costs, unclear treatment effects, medicines with "strange" content...

Ms. Nguyen Thi Yen - Deputy Head of the Department of Pharmacy and Medical Supplies (Vietnam Social Security) said that the amount of money spent on medicine has increased steadily over the years. If in previous years the amount of health insurance money spent on medicine was only approximately 10,000 billion, then by 2015 it was 25,000 billion, in 2016 it was 31,000 billion. However, the proportion of medicine in the total cost of medical examination and treatment has decreased from 60% (2009-2013 period) to 48% in 2015 and 41% in 2016, due to increased service prices.

Previously, at the meeting to collect opinions from hospitals on the draft list of drugs covered by health insurance, the Ministry of Health reported that the cost of health insurance drugs was mainly concentrated in 20 main drug groups, accounting for 86% of the total cost of health insurance drugs in 2016. Of which, the highest cost was in turn the drug groups: antibiotics, cancer, hypertension treatment, vitamins and minerals.

Regarding the vitamin and mineral group alone, Mr. Nguyen Ta Tinh, Head of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Supplies Department (Vietnam Social Security), said that this group of drugs ranked 13th in the list of most-paid items in 2016 with more than 615 billion, higher than the cost of blood and blood products as well as anti-inflammatory and antipyretic drugs.

Of this, the fund spent nearly 140 billion on vitamin B1, B6, B12 combinations, nearly 40 billion on vitamin C, nearly 45 billion on vitamin B6 and magnesium combinations, nearly 20 billion on vitamin A and D combinations...

In addition, for treatment support drugs, in 2016, it was nearly 440 billion VND, of which the fund spent over 53 billion VND on glucosamine (supporting bone and joint treatment), nearly 25 billion VND on glutathione (strengthening the immune system, anti-aging), over 37 billion VND on ginkgo biloba to enhance brain function, nearly 90 billion VND on brain circulation drugs, nerve tonic Peptid (Cerebrolysin concentrate).

Mr. Le Van Kham - Director of the Health Insurance Department (Ministry of Health) said that the review of the list of drugs covered by health insurance is based on the principle of using drugs reasonably, safely, in accordance with the payment conditions of the Health Insurance Fund and people's budget.

The Ministry of Health and Social Insurance have established many professional councils to review the treatment effectiveness of each drug, consider which drugs are suitable, which drugs have unclear effectiveness, and which drugs are outdated and removed from the list. At the same time, more modern drugs with higher treatment effectiveness and reasonable prices are added to the list.

“The current disease model has also changed a lot with many chronic diseases. Therefore, the new drug list is expected to include many types of drugs to treat chronic diseases, meeting the actual, safe and effective needs of patients,” said Mr. Kham.

Ms. Yen added that with some high-cost drugs for cancer groups, the Drafting Committee also proposed two options: tightening drug prescriptions or paying at a rate of 40-50%, with patients paying the rest... In 2016, the cost of 15 active ingredients in the group of cancer treatment drugs prescribed by doctors "devoured" nearly 2,700 billion VND in drug costs from the Health Insurance Fund.

According to Dantri