Self-clearance, patients may miss the opportunity to detect the disease early

Kinhtedothi-Discussing the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Health Insurance, National Assembly deputies expressed concern that the open-access system could cause patients to miss out on the opportunity to detect diseases early. Deputies suggested considering the issue of patients with health insurance cards seeking medical examination and treatment themselves.

Consider regulations for patients with health insurance cards to self-transfer

Delegate Tran Khanh Thu (National Assembly Delegation of Thai Binh Province) said that the Draft Law stipulates a mechanism for patients to go to other facilities for examination and treatment without a referral letter, which sounds like it will help health insurance participants access services more conveniently. However, this may miss the opportunity to detect some symptoms early because patients have skipped primary health care to go to higher-level health care, even in unnecessary cases. This will lead to reduced efficiency and even disrupt the professional hierarchy of the health system.

Delegate Tran Khanh Thu (National Assembly Delegation of Thai Binh Province) - Photo: Quochoi.vn

According to delegate Tran Khanh Thu, the cause of frustration for patients seeking health insurance-covered medical examination and treatment is due to difficulties in the process of requesting referral papers for patients with chronic and serious illnesses; or the list of drugs at grassroots health facilities is less and poorer than at higher levels when treating the same disease.

"The nature of the referral regulation is important and necessary in handling medical examination and treatment for people. In addition to providing administrative information, the referral form also provides the patient's condition, treatment history... helping the receiving facility have timely information about the patient to receive, care for, and treat the patient quickly and conveniently" - delegate Tran Khanh Thu emphasized.

Delegate Mai Van Hai (National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa Province) - Photo: Quochoi.vn

Delegate Mai Van Hai (National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa Province) suggested considering the issue of patients with health insurance cards going to see a doctor and getting treatment themselves, without having to transfer to another hospital, in order to create favorable conditions for patients and ensure strict management and examination and treatment of medical facilities. At the same time, he suggested that there should still be regulations on hospital transfer procedures, but that it should create favorable and quick conditions for patients when they have to transfer to another hospital.

Save thousands of billions when connecting paraclinical results

Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong Province) said that the Draft Law has simplified the procedures for transferring patients between medical examination and treatment facilities, and expanded the rights of those receiving medical examination and treatment under health insurance. This is extremely consistent with the thoughts and aspirations of voters.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong province) - Photo: Quochoi.vn

However, delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga said that, along with the regulation to simplify the referral procedure, it is necessary to consider the regulation on connecting the results of paraclinical examinations of previous medical examination and treatment facilities to reduce waiting time, examination and treatment of patients; reduce costs for patients; prevent waste, save costs for the health insurance fund to use for health insurance examination and treatment.

"This is also an important stepping stone towards synchronizing and connecting patient records and data at medical facilities nationwide and enhancing the responsibility of medical examination and treatment facilities in complying with current regulations on hospital quality management," said delegate Viet Nga.

Delegate Tran Thi Hoa Ry (National Assembly Delegation of Bac Lieu Province) - Photo: Quochoi.vn

Sharing this view, delegate Tran Thi Hoa Ry (National Assembly Delegation of Bac Lieu province) expressed her agreement with the regulation on connecting technical expertise levels when examining patients. This connection aims to ensure the constitutional right of people to choose the most suitable and best medical examination place for themselves when they are sick.

Delegate Tran Thi Hoa Ry proposed to add regulations on connecting paraclinical results between medical examination and treatment facilities at the technical professional level and clearly stipulate the time for implementing nationwide connection to recognize paraclinical results of medical examination and treatment facilities.  

According to the delegate, if the health sector can connect test results, it will save thousands of billions of VND for the health insurance fund. More importantly, it will reduce the burden on paying for health services for the whole society, including millions of people who are poor, near-poor patients and ethnic minorities in difficult circumstances.

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan explains some of the contents raised by delegates - Photo: Quochoi.vn

Explaining some of the contents raised by the delegates, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that regarding the conditions for transferring patients, this is also a new content. Implementing the direction of the National Assembly Chairman and the Prime Minister, this content has been revised to ensure the most convenience for the people; ensuring the stability and solidity of the health system, especially the grassroots health care system.

In particular, the Draft Law mentions issues related to serious diseases, diseases requiring high technical expertise and specialized hospitals. This issue has been considered to both meet the goal of serving patients and ensure a balanced system.

The Minister also agreed with the views of the National Assembly delegates that, in addition to implementing medical examination and treatment, strengthening and developing the grassroots health system is also a challenging problem and there are synchronous solutions.

Regarding the regulations on interoperability of test results mentioned in the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, the Minister of Health said: to ensure the implementation of this content, there are also many synchronous solutions to have a new synchronous infrastructure to meet the interoperability requirements.

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/tu-thong-tuyen-nguoi-benh-co-the-bo-qua-co-hoi-phat-hien-som-benh.html