Innovation in issuing social insurance books and health insurance cards

(Baonghean) - In 2016, the Social Insurance sector continued to focus on promoting administrative procedure reform (AP) under the direction of the Prime Minister. Implementing this policy, Nghe An Social Insurance has simultaneously implemented reform activities in many areas, in which the issuance of social insurance books and health insurance cards continues to be strongly decentralized to district-level social insurance, creating initiative for both subjects, employees, employers and social insurance agencies.

In addition to the decentralization of 100% of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance participants managed and directly collected by district and city social insurance agencies, groups of subjects directly collected by provincial social insurance agencies such as children under 6 years old, the poor, and ethnic minorities are also authorized by provincial social insurance agencies to print and issue health insurance cards to district-level social insurance agencies.

Recently, the decentralization of the issuance, re-issuance, adjustment, confirmation, closing of social insurance books and recording of unemployment insurance payment periods for social insurance participants who have received unemployment benefits has been continued for social insurance participants at units directly collected by district-level social insurance, those who have received social insurance or are reserving social insurance and unemployment insurance payment periods; issuance, re-issuance and exchange of health insurance cards for health insurance participants collected by district-level social insurance; re-issuance and exchange of health insurance cards for cases receiving unemployment benefits in districts and cities; issuance of certificates of non-co-payment during the year for health insurance participants belonging to groups of subjects decentralized and authorized by provincial social insurance. In particular, the operation of related contents between provincial and district-level social insurance is carried out by interconnected software to ensure speed, accuracy and strictness.

Employees complete procedures for social insurance book issuance at Nghe An Social Insurance.

Thanks to the strong decentralization of many professional activities to the grassroots level, it has contributed to saving a lot of time, effort and travel costs for subjects, employees and employers, especially the issuance, re-issuance and exchange of health insurance cards to ensure that they take place quickly and promptly, contributing to reducing the workload for the provincial Social Insurance, focusing time on improving and enhancing the quality of management of social insurance books and health insurance cards serving subjects in the whole province. The operational staff are specialized in the area, so they can easily grasp the information of the subjects, understand how to write the proper names of ethnic minorities, minimize confusion, errors, and duplicate cards, creating high consensus in public opinion.

In addition to the network efficiency as mentioned above, decentralization also has another highlight: the workload is widely distributed, ensuring both a "link" of network management between the provincial and district levels, and convenience for monitoring information using a narrow-area, separate management model, easy to control, compare, and enhance the sense of responsibility of the staff directly working. Thanks to that, the work of issuing social insurance books, confirming the time and contribution level on the books ensures accuracy, speed, and convenience for employees in resolving social insurance regimes.

In 2016, Nghe An province had 22,156 people granted social insurance books, of which 18,728 were newly granted and 3,428 were re-issued, ensuring that 100% of employees were granted books in a timely manner when new issues arose or when social insurance books were lost, damaged, changed, or personal information was changed. In addition, the provincial Social Insurance actively and proactively coordinated with the People's Committees of districts, cities, and towns to review and ensure social insurance regime information for 291 officials who were not re-elected to the People's Councils at all levels; and issued social insurance books for 220 files of Cooperative Directors according to Decision No. 250/QD-TTg dated January 29, 2013 of the Prime Minister.

Enterprises carry out social insurance procedures at Nghi Loc District Social Insurance. (Illustration photo).

Implementing the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, Nghe An Provincial Social Insurance has completed the printing and issuance of 2016 health insurance cards for poor households and near-poor households with 100% contribution support from the State budget; timely printing and issuance of health insurance cards for 392,749 ethnic minority people living in difficult socio-economic areas, people living in especially difficult socio-economic areas; people living in especially difficult communes in coastal areas from September 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016.

During the year, synchronized data, issued health insurance cards according to new models and with two-dimensional barcodes to improve the efficiency of medical examination and treatment according to standards, facilitated parties in health insurance medical examination and treatment, met the management requirements of the industry and were consistent with the strategy for developing universal health insurance; synchronously implemented measures to fundamentally overcome the situation of duplicate health insurance cards, reviewed 42,464 duplicate health insurance cards that were still valid until 2016. Some units performed well in handling duplicate cards: Quy Hop District Social Insurance, Do Luong District Social Insurance, Thai Hoa Town Social Insurance. In particular, successfully organized the compilation of a list of households participating in health insurance across the province, thereby grouping subjects to mobilize, expand, develop subjects, and promote the progress of universal health insurance according to the Government's Project.

Business representatives asked many questions during the dialogue with the tax and social insurance sectors. (Illustration photo).

Commenting on the effectiveness of promoting decentralization at the grassroots level in the field of issuing social insurance books and health insurance cards, Mr. Luu Van Hong - Director of Luu Hong Company (Quynh Giang commune, Quynh Luu district) said: “Before decentralization, every time a worker went to the hospital and had personal information on the card incorrect, they had to contact the district social insurance and wait for them to return to the provincial social insurance to correct the information, which took a lot of time. In cases of sudden serious illness that required a card urgently for transfer to a treatment facility, but had to change the card due to incorrect information, it was very inconvenient. Now, all procedures are transacted at the district level, so issuing new cards and changing cards is faster, less time-consuming and less costly, but the most exciting thing is that there is no hassle... As for issuing social insurance books, now everything is done at the grassroots level, which is both fast and convenient and limits errors in personal information on the books, especially for the proper names of workers who are indigenous people... That is a remarkable thing about the service quality of the social insurance sector in this field”./.

Mai Anh