From January 1, 2017, hospital fees will increase for people without health insurance.

On September 27, Mr. Nguyen Nam Lien - Director of the Department of Financial Planning (Ministry of Health) said that the Ministry has developed a draft Circular to adjust hospital fees for people without health insurance cards. According to Mr. Lien, since March, hospital fees have been adjusted twice for the group with health insurance cards after adding on-duty allowance, surgical procedure allowance and salary to the hospital fees.

According to the draft, from January 1, 2017, hospital fees for people without health insurance will be added with the cost of on-duty allowance, surgical procedures, and from July 1, 2017, salary costs will be added. Many services will increase by 2 times. Specifically, the medical examination fee in March at a grade 1 hospital is still 20,000 VND/visit; grade 2 hospital is 15,000 VND, grade 3 hospital is 10,000 VND, grade 4 hospital is 7,000 VND. By July, the examination fee will increase to the equivalent of the hospital levels: 39,000 VND; 35,000 VND, 31,000 VND and 29,000 VND. From March 1, the cost of an intensive care bed at a special hospital increased from 335,000 to 354,000 VND, and in July it increased to 677,000 VND/person.

Patients without health insurance cards will incur large medical examination and treatment costs. Photo: DV

Thus, from July 1, 2017, people with health insurance and people without health insurance will enjoy the same hospital fees. However, patients without health insurance will have to pay 100%. This is a large cost, if the case is expensive, the cost can be up to tens or hundreds of millions of VND. "Currently, nearly 80% of the population has health insurance cards, only 20% have not participated, most of whom have an average or higher standard of living. Therefore, if you do not participate in health insurance, you will have to bear a great burden when you are sick" - Mr. Lien commented.

According to Mr. Lien, to support people, the Ministry of Health will coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to guide localities to transfer the budget currently providing salaries to hospitals to support the remaining 30% for near-poor people to participate in health insurance, and increase the support level for people working in agriculture, fisheries, salt production, and forestry with average living standards so that they can participate in health insurance (currently supporting at least 30%).

In addition, the Ministry of Health has also requested that provinces allocate budgets and mobilize capital sources for the Provincial Fund for Supporting Medical Examination and Treatment for the Poor, and direct hospitals to use a portion of the difference in revenue and expenditure to establish a Fund for Supporting Medical Examination and Treatment, to support cases with difficulties in paying hospital fees.

According to Dan Viet