New: Guidelines on Health Insurance Coverage for COVID-19 Testing Costs
Reimbursement of COVID-19 testing costs for health insurance card holders in cases where patients must undergo medical quarantine, enforced medical quarantine, and COVID-19-infected individuals being examined and treated at medical facilities
On 30/7, the Ministry of Health issued Official Letter No. 4051/BYT-KHTC to Vietnam Social Security regarding the reimbursement of COVID-19 testing costs.
Accordingly, in this document, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son stated that, following the direction of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control on enhancing capacity and conducting COVID-19 testing, the Ministry of Health requested Vietnam Social Security to direct provincial and municipal Social Security offices to temporarily reimburse the costs of conducting COVID-19 testing as follows:
Reimbursement of COVID-19 testing costs for health insurance card holders in cases where patients must undergo medical quarantine, enforced medical quarantine, COVID-19-infected individuals being examined and treated at medical facilities, and cases indicated by medical facilities to undergo testing according to the Ministry of Health's guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of acute respiratory infections caused by nCoV.
The official letter also clearly states the applicable prices specified in the appendix attached to Circular No. 13/2019/TT-BYT dated 5/7/2019 of the Ministry of Health amending and supplementing several Articles of Circular No. 39/2018/TT-BYT dated 30/11/2018 of the Ministry of Health providing for uniform health insurance examination and treatment service prices across hospitals of the same rank nationwide and guiding the application of prices and reimbursement of examination and treatment costs in certain cases.
Specifically, service No. 1735 for bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic Real-time PCR testing is 734.000 VND/test sample in the case of Real-time PCR testing. Service No. 1736 for bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic rapid testing is 238.000 VND/test sample in the case of rapid testing.
Regarding this issue, also on 30/7, Vietnam Social Security issued Official Letter No. 2418/BHXH-CSYT to the Social Security offices of centrally run provinces and cities, the Ministry of National Defense Social Security, and the People's Public Security Social Security, requesting coordination with local health insurance medical facilities to implement, timely assess, and reimburse testing costs according to the guidance in Official Letter No. 4051 of the Ministry of Health.
At the same time, provincial Social Security offices are requested to comply with the instructions in Official Letter No. 2146/BYT-BH dated 17/4/2020 and Official Letter No. 2276/BYT-BH dated 24/4/2020 of the Ministry of Health regarding the reimbursement of health insurance medical examination and treatment costs related to the COVID-19 epidemic.
