Since 2018, FV Hospital has made great efforts to expand the scope of treatment indications applied by Social Insurance in order to reduce treatment costs for patients, while at the same time enabling more people in Vietnam to benefit from the medical expertise offered at the hospital. On March 3, 2022, FV Hospital was officially recognised as a Grade II Hospital, according to decision No. 535/QD-BYT, issued by the Ministry of Health.
At the end of 2017, the Ministry of Health issued Decision No. 6062/QD-BYT as the scoring criteria for professional and technical classification, and equivalent ranking for private medical examination and treatment facilities. Based on this decision, many private hospitals are only classified as Grade III hospitals, despite having high quality facilities and professional staff.
Faced with that situation, the Board of Directors of FV Hospital decided to upgrade the hospital and assigned the Medical Office to take responsibility for executing the changes. Ms Nguyen Thi Ly, FV’s Medical Manager, said: “The evaluation of the Ministry of Health includes many items, but in terms of facilities, the professional qualifications of the clinical team at FV have already been exceptional. From there, we decided to focus on expanding our portfolio of technical expertise in order to increase our review scores.”
To meet this goal, during the past four years, the Medical Office has collaborated with each specialty, the Human Resources Department and the Facility Department (including Building Maintenance and Biomedical teams) to evaluate and plan to expand the technical portfolio expertise for each specialty. This work requires meticulousness and care, so takes a lot of time to perform. From 2018 until today, the Medical Office has applied for certification to perform more than 3,300 more specialised techniques, bringing the total number of techniques that FV can perform to over 13,600. This was also key to ensuring FV could be promoted to a Grade II hospital.
FV’s Chief Operation Officer, Ms Pham Thi Thanh Mai, shared: “Becoming a Grade II hospital brings a number of advantages. In addition to enhancing FV’s position and reputation, the promotion will position the hospital to better perfect its motto of putting the patient at the centre of all activities.” Grade II hospitals have a broader list of prescribed drugs and specialised techniques that it can offer. At the same time, FVH is also a hospital with professional and technical divisions equivalent to hospitals in provinces and centrally run cities, so coverage from health insurance is also better, meeting the treatment needs of patients by reducing their out-of-pocket costs.
The hospital’s promotion has helped to partially support the cost of treatment at specialties with medical insurance, especially for Hy Vong Cancer Care Centre.
Specifically, the hospital promotion has helped support a part of treatment costs at specialties covered by health insurance (HI, under Vietnam Social Insurance) such as Cardiology, Ophthalmology, Trauma and Orthopaedics, and particularly Hope Cancer Centre. Accordingly, the number of therapeutic drugs included in the insurance list (i.e. covered by health insurance at FV) will be expanded compared to those available to Grade III hospitals.
“The list of drugs available to treat cancer patients will be more diverse, and the costs paid by social insurance for patients treated at a Grade II hospitals will also be higher,” said Ms Dao Thi Ngoc Bich, Department of Patient Finance & Insurance, explained. In the near future, the Patient Finance & Insurance Department will also update pharmaceuticals, specialised technical lists and examination fees, as well as create favourable conditions to support patients when they want to be transferred to FV for treatment, Ms. Bich added.
Under the new designation, FV Hospital will continue to improve healthcare services for people. In addition, FV also aims to expand and develop the hospital to further improve its position in the medical field in Vietnam.
According to Regulation No. 6062/QD-BYT, private hospitals are classified into four grades. To be classified as a Grade II hospital, a private medical facility must achieve a total rating of 70-90 points on a 100-point scale.
The hospital evaluation and ranking framework of the Ministry of Health is based on five major categories including: bed size, labour structure and qualifications, scope of professional activities (list of implementation techniques), infrastructure and equipment, and human resource training and participation in scientific research.
Some notes specific to FV’s reclassification as a Grade II Hospital:
- For techniques and drug lists covered by health insurance in specialties: Outpatients at Hy Vong Cancer Care Centre and Ophthalmology need to have a referral letter to enjoy health insurance benefits; inpatients at the Department of Cardiology, Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics who do not need a referral will still apply for health insurance payments.
- The list of pharmaceuticals FV is permitted to prescribe is expanded, so the patient will be supported by health insurance to a greater degree, although currently health insurance is only supporting the payment of some drugs on the cancer treatment list at FV.
