RTCCD supports to implement the Amended Health Insurance Law 2014

On January 4th, 2016, Research and Training Centre for Community Development (RTCCD)/Evidence-based Health Policy Development Advocacy Coalition (EBHPD) cooperated with Committee on Social Affairs- National Assembly and Vietnam Social Security in holding Conference to present program’s results and difficulties after one year introducing policy of Household Health Insurance and Commune Authority implements the Amended Health Insurance Law 2014.

The Conference was run by Vice Chairman of Committee on Social Affairs- National Assembly Mr. Nguyen Van Tien, Deputy Director of Health Insurance Implementation Department Mr. Vu Xuan Bang and Director of RTCCD, Dr. Tran Tuan in accordance with more than 90 representatives who are leaders of Parliament’s Unions, Departments, Government’s office, The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and  Social Affairs, Institute for Social Security Science, Commune Authorities, national and international organizations and media and press.

In Conference’s opening speech, Dr. Nguyen Van Tien emphasized the role of Commune Authorities in advocating people to participate in Household Health Insurance and towards “all-people Health Insurance”. He had a brief summary of the Amended Health Insurance Law 2014, passed by National Assembly saying that all people are obligatory to participate in Health Insurance, even voluntary group. Households Health Insurance has a discounted scheme based on the number of people in family. This is general trend of many countries around the worlds. The Law also expands the budget to support people living in  coastal region, islands and mountainous areas.

Dr. Tran Tuan, Head of Actions Standing Committee of EBHPD Coalition, Director of RTCCD, an agency has been assigned as the leader position in developing the Preventive Health component of Essential Health Package paid by Health Insurance and conducting program’s propaganda strategy, reported program’s achievements in two experiment places, Hanoi and Ha Nam.

Last year, RTCCD developed an action framework to build the Essential Health Package, an important content in the Amended Health Insurance Law 2014, focused on two levels: At macro level, Financial Planning Department of Ministry of Health assigned RTCCD to develop  the  technique of establishing the Preventive Essential Health Package paid by Health Insurance and the research plan on preventive system administration, aiming at introducing the Essential Immune Service for children of Preventive Essential Health Package paid by Health Insurance. At micro level, RTCCD performs fieldwork about primary healthcare education package of Primary Healthcare Service (contributes to well-rounded child development) and Green Pine Clinic to practice care service at primary level about preventive intervention, treatment and care for the child ‘s well-rounded development.

Especially, RTCCD’s model about Commune Authorities implement the amended Health Insurance Law 2014 achieved significant outcome and contributed to expand and spread Household Health Insurance Policy in all provinces. RTCCD conducted research and developed this model in Tan Dan Commune, Soc Son District, Hanoi. To be more specific, while Hamlet Authorities have data notebooks (sổ cái) to manage integrally subjects of Household Health Insurance, Commune Authorities have a software to archive all commune’s candidates and retrieve data to provide evidences for Vietnam Social Security and Ministry of Health to introduce legal documents as the guidance for implementing the amended Health Insurance Law 2014.

Specific objectives of this model is to simplify and increase the efficiency all over system, provide valid information, consume less workforce, reduce administrative procedure and save time and costs. Simultaneously, it is convenient to retrieve data, easy to find out mistakes and improve the capacity of information update to serve for drawing plans.

During Conference, representatives discussed about recommendations for Household Health Insurance policy. The majority believed RTCCD’s model is sustainable and long lasting since it concentrates on reinforcing Commune Authorities’ capacities, creates the competition among Communes. Moreover, Commune and Hamlet’s staffs are the linkage between people and leaders and seize people’s up-to-date situation in details.

Mr. Bui Viet Tinh, Director of Institute for Social Security Science shared his perspectives on behalf of the agency issuing Health Insurance Cards. Vietnam Social Security is supervising strictly the Amended Health Insurance Law 2014 to prevent possibilities of overlapping, lateness and mistakes in issuing cards. However, both model of RTCCD and Vietnam Social Security only can reduce overlapping but cannot address explicitly this problem. The reason for this is Vietnam Social Security can only filter their own data; whereas, at local level, some other agencies are responsible for issuing these cards, namely Police, Military and Government Cipher Committee. Nevertheless, when reporting the data, Province Authorities only provide the number of cards, not the names of subjects purchasing cards. He also clarified the cause of the late card issue does not lie entirely on the Health Insurance agency’s responsibility but it is the Commune and Hamlet’s when they are late for distributing cards as well as due to difficulties in travelling in mountainous areas.

Representative of Tan Dan Commune Authority, the location is tested for RTCCD’s model, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huong agreed on this model. “Specialists from RTCCD worked with local staffs to give us instructions for investigating and archiving data of Household Health Insurance’s subjects in data notebooks and the software. Therefore, when switching to Social Questionnaire of Vietnam Social Security, staffs were familiar with it and did not feel any challenging.

Representative of Vietnam Social Security, Mr. Vu Xuan Bang stated that Health Insurance is served for people’s benefits, thus it is necessary to encourage  people to purchase Health Insurance. After finishing archiving data and creating lists, Commune Authorities participate in persuading  people who have not held cards yet to buy them. To ensure the success of “all-people Health Insurance”, we should not engage in obligatory mechanism but propagating and encouraging people’s willingness by varied ways to have Health Insurance gradually grown in people’s perceptions and lives.

Similar to Mr. Vu Xuan Bang, Dr. Nguyen Van Tien thought the first thing to do is advocacy. We should not wait for people to purchase cards. To fulfill this task, it needs a team with enthusiastic supporters do home visit, especially on holidays, to prompt households to pay for Health Insurance as we did for Family planning propaganda before.

Some photos from the Conference:

Hong Hanh