Establish appropriate medical examination and treatment service prices for each hospital

The Circular is considered to "open the way" for medical facilities to operate as well as provide specific instructions for units to have a basis for building service prices in a unified manner.

People come to register for medical examination and treatment at medical facilities

“Open” regulations for hospitals

Survey at the Department of On-Demand Medical Examination of Bach Mai Hospital, the current on-demand medical examination price here has the highest price of 150,000 VND/time. This is the price according to the health insurance regulations and only collects a part to pay for overtime for doctors. Specifically here, the examination price for Professors, Associate Professors is 150,000 VND/time; examination for PhDs and Specialist II is 120,000 VND/time; examination for Masters and Specialist I is 70,000 VND/time...

With the current price of on-demand medical examinations being considered low, it is difficult to ensure income for high-quality human resources and it is impossible to develop high-quality services at the hospital. Therefore, Circular 13 can help hospitals set appropriate prices.

According to Circular 13, the maximum price for medical examination services is 500,000 VND/visit. Bach Mai Hospital is researching to establish a suitable price to ensure the rights of the people.

Associate Professor, Dr. Dao Xuan Co, Director of Bach Mai Hospital, commented: “Circular 13 has “opened” up for hospitals, because it does not regulate or fix service prices, but has a price range from minimum to maximum for hospitals to base on their conditions and patients to set prices suitable for each hospital and the hospital’s facilities. Currently, Bach Mai Hospital is reviewing, to soon discuss, build and issue medical examination prices upon request to implement when Circular 13 takes effect.”

Accordingly, the Hospital does not apply high prices uniformly, but people have the choice of service prices when coming to see a doctor or receive treatment. Circular 13 also allows hospitals and public health facilities to carry out public-private partnerships and joint ventures and cooperation. In particular, it is possible to cooperate with foreign health facilities, hospitals, and foreign medical experts to examine and treat people in the country; creating conditions for hospitals to operate...

Not only special-class hospitals, lower-class hospitals can also apply and build medical examination and treatment service prices based on their infrastructure.

According to Director of Duc Giang General Hospital (Hanoi) Nguyen Van Thuong, in order to establish appropriate medical examination and treatment prices, hospitals must carefully research the infrastructure, qualifications of doctors and nurses of the hospital as well as segment patient groups and their ability to pay to come up with appropriate prices.

The price of on-demand medical examination and treatment services will be built on 6 factors including: Direct costs, salaries, risk management, asset depreciation and accumulated costs for reinvestment.

According to experts, issuing a price frame for medical examination and treatment on demand will encourage medical facilities to improve service quality, contributing to improving income so that medical staff can feel secure in their long-term service.

Does not affect patients with health insurance

According to the Ministry of Health, the regulation on prices for on-demand medical examination and treatment services only applies to those who voluntarily register to use on-demand medical examination and treatment services and does not affect health insurance card users or those who do not need medical examination and treatment services.

To develop a price framework for on-demand medical examination and treatment services, the Ministry of Health conducted a survey of nearly 100 hospitals from central to district levels that provide on-demand medical examination and treatment services to determine appropriate levels.

With the introduction of Circular 13, hospitals that are applying examination and treatment service prices higher than the prescribed level (over 500,000 VND/visit) must review and adjust their prices to match the issued price frame. Medical facilities, when issuing service prices upon request, must evaluate their infrastructure and treatment quality.

In particular, the Ministry of Health also stipulates that hospitals are not allowed to classify or force people to seek medical examination and treatment according to their requests; people are allowed to choose medical examination and treatment services according to regulations.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Le Duc Luan, the purpose of issuing Circular 13 is to create a legal basis for medical examination and treatment facilities to develop and provide medical examination and treatment services on demand in accordance with the direction of socialization of medical work; guide medical facilities to develop price lists for medical examination and treatment services on demand in accordance with regulations.

Currently, hospitals are developing plans to implement Circular 13 when it takes effect from August 15.

According to Tin Tuc Newspaper