More than 70 medical services discounted from July 15, 2018: Who is happy and who is worried?
From July 15, Circular 15 of the Ministry of Health on adjusting medical service prices takes effect. More than 70 services are discounted compared to before.
People are worried that if medical service prices decrease, will the quality of medical examination and treatment decrease? Hospitals are worried that they will not be able to ensure their revenue.
Worry about reduced service quality
In this price adjustment, there are more than 70 services and techniques, the average test price is reduced from 6-24%, some services have a price reduction of nearly 50% such as: ENT endoscopy, tonsillectomy with electric knife... In case the patient is lying on a stretcher or folding bed, the price will be applied at 50% of the bed day price according to each type of specialty...
This adjustment also increases the prices of 9 services, including 7 bed-day prices, mainly intensive care beds and emergency care beds (an average increase of 5%) and 2 testing services. This circular also stipulates that hospitals must arrange human resources to ensure that each examination table does not exceed 65 visits per day. If it exceeds, the Social Insurance agency will only pay 50% of the medical examination price...
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| People with health insurance benefit from reduced medical service prices. Photo: Trube |
Many of the discounted services are those with high frequency of medical examination and treatment, making patients very excited. Ms. Do Ngoc Thuy in Dong Da, Hanoi said that her two children have chronic pharyngitis, and every time the weather changes, they have to pay for examination and endoscopy. Now that the price has been reduced a lot, she is very happy. As for families with kidney failure patients, when the price of medical services is reduced, they only have to pay about 500,000 VND per month instead of having to pay more than 1 million VND before. "However, if the price of services is reduced and the quality of service is also reduced, I am more worried than happy," Ms. Thuy said.
Ms. Nguyen Thi To Uyen, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City, is also concerned that if service prices decrease, hospital revenue will decrease, affecting doctors' income. Thus, good doctors will leave public hospitals with low incomes to private hospitals with higher salaries. In the end, people who go to the hospital will suffer. Moreover, the fact that many types of tests are discounted also makes patients worry about having necessary tests cut, affecting the quality of disease diagnosis.
Hospitals must improve the quality of medical examination and treatment to save themselves.
This reduction in medical service prices will significantly reduce the revenue of hospitals while the basic salary according to the Government's regulations will start to increase from July 1st, which is a concern for many hospitals. How to balance finances while the salaries of staff cannot be cut - is a difficult problem that hospitals will have to struggle to calculate to balance revenue and expenditure.
According to Mr. Le Minh Quang, Deputy Director of Viet Tiep Friendship Hospital, Hai Phong, the hospital has an average of 1,000 medical examinations and 700 inpatients per day (more than other first-class provincial hospitals). With this reduction in service prices, the hospital's income will decrease by 2-3 billion VND/month.
“This salary increase only takes into account the basic salary, each month the hospital has to increase about 700 million VND to pay salaries for staff. We have no choice but to save expenses and improve the quality of services from examination and treatment to attract patients to save ourselves,” said Mr. Le Minh Quang.
Some hospital leaders also said that this price reduction will probably affect lower-level hospitals the most, because examination fees will decrease and medical services will decrease when most hospitals are given autonomy.
Mr. Nham Si Duc, Professional Director of Lam Hoa General Hospital, Thai Binh, confided: "For private hospitals, the total cost of hospital structure, we have to borrow from the bank from 100 - 200 billion, the most difficult problem is to calculate to pay a part of the principal and interest every year, the rest will be the same as public hospitals. There are many difficulties, so the only way is to ensure service quality, create prestige and brand to attract patients".
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hien, Deputy Director of Bach Mai Hospital, also said that people's concerns about service price reduction affecting the quality of medical examination and treatment are just psychological. Bach Mai Hospital always maintains and ensures the quality of medical examination and treatment for people.
“To maintain the quality of medical examination and treatment as before, the hospital will have a monthly and quarterly evaluation scale and make appropriate adjustments. This time, only adjusting the price of 88 on thousands of services will not affect the quality,” Mr. Hien affirmed.
According to experts, Circular 15 is an important turning point in the roadmap for correctly and fully calculating medical service prices, increasing the benefits of health insurance users, while encouraging lower-level medical facilities to develop professional qualifications as well as medical equipment, self-balance revenue and expenditure, and limit unnecessary technical indications and procedures./.