Staff of the provincial Social Insurance Agency guide people to provide information on health insurance cards.

The key is the quality of services

Not receiving support as much as mountainous districts, Bac Giang city has always taken the lead in developing health insurance participants, reaching a high rate. By this time, 96.5 percent of its population have health insurance cards. Many communes and wards in the city see the coverage rate of 100 percent.

The municipal Party Committee and People's Committee have directed the city’s Health Department and Medical Center, hospital and medical clinics to focus on renovating and improving service quality, not letting patients with health insurance cards wait for a long time. Besides the list of stipulated techniques, the city’s residents have also benefited from many new, modern specialized techniques, thus reducing their transfers to higher-level hospitals.

Every year, the city develops plans, assigns specific targets and mobilizes the entire political system to promote communication and dissemination of health insurance policies, focusing on groups such as small traders, freelance workers and farmer households with good living conditions. 

Nguyen Cong Phuong, Deputy Director of the Social Insurance Agency of Bac Giang city, said that in order to expand health insurance coverage, the unit has created favorable conditions for people to participate in health insurance sustainably and kept the rate of pupils and students at 100 percent. It has attached importance to increase coverage among households while paying attention to small enterprises that yet buy social and health insurance for its employees.

Focusing on specific target groups, Bac Giang city and districts have actively intensified popularization work to raise people's awareness of the benefits of medical examination and treatment with health insurance cards. After two years of implementing Directive No. 08-CT/TU of the Standing Board of the provincial Party Committee, Bac Giang city and districts have surpassed the targets assigned by the provincial People's Committee on developing health insurance participants. Many localities have a high health insurance coverage rate such as Son Dong district (98.4 percent), Luc Ngan district (95.5 percent), and Yen The district (94.9 percent).

Continuing to raise health insurance coverage

With health insurance cards, patients see their costs for computed tomography to diagnose diseases at the provincial general hospital reduced.

Despite the positive results, the provincial Social Insurance Agency has still analyzed the situation and focused on coordinating with Bac Giang city and districts to develop target participants in order to continue raising the coverage rate. 

According to the evaluation of the provincial Steering Committee of the scheme on implementing the universal health insurance roadmap for the period to 2020, in the process of implementation, some local Party committees and authorities have not paid much attention to drastically directing the review and update of the list of pupils, students and workers participating in health insurance. 

The proportions of students at universities, colleges and vocational training schools, and local people participating in household health insurance are not high, leading to unsustainable coverage.

In 2018, the whole province strives to have over 97 percent of its population covered by health insurance, and all people in more than half of communes, wards and townships with health insurance cards. 

According to Than Duc Lai, Director of provincial Social Insurance Agency, to realize the targets, in the coming time, localities and units will continue implementing Directive 08 and strengthening the direction of local Party committees and authorities in the implementation process, considering this a way to measure leadership, instruction and mass mobilization capacities.

The provincial People’s Committee will continue to enhance the state management of health insurance. Associations and mass organizations should promote popularisation to raise awareness of employees and employers.

At the same time, the health sector also determines that for people to voluntarily buy health insurance cards in the current self-sufficiency mechanism, treatment facilities must continue to innovate and improve the quality of services to attract patients, ensuring that all people access and use specialized technical services.

Minh Thu