The National Assembly Standing Committee on September 25 discussed the draft law.

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said the draft law also contains solutions on administrative procedures for medical examination and treatment that reduce paperwork, increases the use of information technology, and promotes decentralization, making it more convenient for people, agencies and organizations.

The draft law contains provisions on medical care at specific level hospitals, updated according to the technical levels of the 2023 Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, under the principle of maintaining the same level of health insurance benefits as currently applied.

One of the most noteworthy features of the draft law allows terminally ill patients to go directly to the highest-level hospitals with no need to obtain introductions from lower-level hospitals. If improved, this will help cut the number of procedures patients have to follow, thus reducing patients’ spending.

The new regulations in effect decentralize local health departments and define medical facilities for initial medical examination registrations, and allocate health insurance cards reasonably.

Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Social Affairs Nguyen Thuy Anh proposed maintaining the spirit of the current laws on initial registration for medical examinations and treatment. However, she stressed that the laws need to be designed in a way to prevent  abuse of policies and the ask-and-grant scheme.

The most burning issue in payments for medical examinations and treatment for patients with health insurance policy is the disagreement between medical facilities and health insurance inspection agencies on assessing the reason for providing medical services. 

Some experts believe that social insurance agencies are not professionally capable of carrying out inspections, so it is necessary to amend and clarify the concept of health insurance inspection in the current law.

National Assembly chair Tran Thanh Man stressed that regulations must be designed in a way to ensure equal treatment for patients who pay for medical services and patients with a health insurance policy.

Thu Hang