Photo for illustration (Source: nhandan.com.vn)
At the meeting, VAAC said that the rate of HIV patients being treating with ARV and having health insurance card is 89%. It is expected that the rate will increase to over 90% by the end of 2018.
Four provinces of Ca Mau, Ninh Thuan, Lai Chau and Cao Bang have health insurance coverage rates of 100%, 42 localities have coverage rates of over 90% and the remaining localities have coverage rates of 80-90%.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Long, Head of VAAC, said that to achieve the above positive results, the Ministry of Health has strongly deployed communication work by direct and public communication channels to provide information on the benefits of ARV treatment and early ARV treatment, and the benefits and rights of patients when participating in health insurance for continuous treatment to HIV infected people in order to encourage and mobilize them to voluntarily participate in health insurance.
He also said that the Ministry of Health has issued a document to instruct building a plan ensuring financial support to buy health insurance and pay for ARV.
At present, 35 localities have approved support to buy health insurance cards for HIV-infected people; and 18 localities have approved the budget for ARV co-payment.
The Head of VAAC also added that the Ministry of Health is cooperating with Vietnam Social Security to build a database for ARV treatment patients to follow ARV payment from health insurance resources and establish an information management system for each patient, who participates in ARV treatment from January 1st, 2019.
With the database, a health facility can manage patients with or without health insurance card. In addition, health facilities can also identify patients, even when they move to other health facility.
The database also creates a unique identification number for each patient based on birth date, ID number, health insurance card and bar code and biometric date. At the same time, this database also provides information related to patients such as medical records, prescriptions, test forms and blood samples./.