Patients register for their health examination
with health insurance cards. – VNA/VNS Photo
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam on Monday sent an
urgent document asking concerned organisations to inspect the use of the health
insurance fund.
Recently,
multiple media channels reported several cases where profits were being sought
from the health insurance fund in some provinces and cities, due to which the
fund faced the risk of overspending.
Deputy
Prime Minister Dam asked the Ministry of Health, the Viet Nam Social Insurance
and the Viet Nam Medical Association to check the fund and penalise those
taking advantage of the fund to ensure legal rights and profits of people
buying health insurance.
Dam asked
the Viet Nam Medical Association to propose measures for effective use of the
medical insurance fund.
Statistics
of the Viet Nam Social Insurance showed that in the first half of this year,
the total value of the health insurance fund was VND28.2 trillion (US$1.3
billion).
Actual
expenses for health examination and treatment were valued at VND30.3 trillion
($1.4 billion), an increase of 40 per cent compared with the same period last
year.
The
overspending was a result of the increase in the number of people buying health
insurance by 12 per cent, the application of equal health service prices based
on the Ministry of Health’s Circular 37 and some people with health insurance
cards taking undue advantage of the health insurance fund.
Deputy
Director of the Viet Nam Social Insurance Pham Luong Son said many people went
to hospitals for health examinations with health insurance cards several times
a day.
In July,
one person underwent health examination 27 times in one month. Another person
went in for a health examination to 2-3 different medical stations in one
morning and obtained a prescription of some VND200,000 ($8.8) from each medical
station.
If the
person resold the medicines to drugstores at cheaper prices, the profits he/she
took were quite significant, Son said.
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