National consultancy to develop administrative analysis of Health Insurance Law impact assessment

The ILO recognizes the contribution of all existing forms of Social Health Protection mechanisms and “supports the optimization of their outcomes and the rationalized use of pluralistic financing mechanisms to reach UHC”[1].  The ILO supports social health protection systems which aim to provide universal access to needed health care that is affordable, available, of adequate quality and offers financial protection in times of illness, injury and maternity. ILO also supports policies and measures that aims at leaving no one behind, as a commitment to equity and non-discrimination, based on a human right based approach and in line with International Labour Standards.

The implementation of the current Law on Health Insurance in Viet Nam has proved that many constraints towards expansion of coverage towards Universal Health Coverage remain within the Law and the provisions is insufficient to enable the effective management of the HI system. Therefore, the Ministry of Health has been recently assigned to review and propose a fundamental amendment of the HI law for the National Assembly to consider and adopt.

ILO-Lux project is committed to support MOH in the process of amending the HIL. The first important workshop supported by the project was an enabling forum where relevant stakeholders engaged into open discussions on policy options pertaining to core issues such as insurance contribution rate, state budget’s subsidies to cover the informal economy worker groups and provider payment mechanism.

As provided in the Law on Promulgation of Legal Documents 2015, MOH will have to prepare a Policy Impact Assessment, which comprehensively analyse the potential impacts of each of the new or revised policies which are proposed to be included in the revised Law. The impact assessment should look into the following elements: 1. Economic impacts should analyse costs and benefits of the proposed policy on production, business, consumption, investment and business environment, business competitiveness, economy structure of the region or the country, public expenditure/investment and other economic issues; 2. Social impacts should analyse the potential impacts on population, employment, property, health and health care, environment, education, transport, poverty, culture, social contracts and other social issues; 3. Gender impacts (if any) should analyse the economic and social impacts related to opportunities, conditions and capacity to implement and benefit from the revised policies from gender lenses; 4. Administrative impacts (if any) should analyse the rationale, legitimacy, relevance and costs of administrative procedures required to implement the policy; 5. Legal impacts should analyse the feasibility and compliance capacity of agencies and individuals, impacts on government apparatus, Viet Nam’s compliance with international conventions.

ILO is looking for a consultant to carry out a policy impact assessment on administrative procedures to support the Ministry of Health in its preparation for the submission of the revised Law on health insurance, and more specifically to feed into the overall policy impact assessment the MoH will submit for review, together with the stock-taking report and the policy orientation report to the National Assembly.

The most updated policy reforms prepared by MOH include ten policy areas as follows:

1. Amending the scope of SHI benefit

2. Facilitating the healthcare facilities to provide SHI-covered healthcare services

3. Facilitating access to health services

4. Diversifying SHI service package

5. Reform of system for controlling service use and cost

6. Increasing effectiveness of SHI fund management and use based on provider payment method

7. Management, use and balance of SHI fund

8. Universal health insurance

9. Modernizing the management and administrative reform in SHI implementation

10. Increasing the responsibility of agencies and organization in the management of the health insurance fund

Task 1: Develop an inception report for the assignment in discussion with ILO and MOH/HID and LD

1. Outline of the impact assessment report on administrative procedure:

Describe the areas of analysis in the impact assessment of the administrative procedures in accordance with Decree No. 34/2016 / ND-CP and the guidelines of the Ministry of Justice / USAID following the link below. http://phanhoichinhsach.molisa.gov.vn/documents/20182/49892/%C4%90%C3%A1nh+gi%C3%A1+t%C3%A1c+%C4%91%E1%BB%99ng+v%E1%BB%81+gi%E1%BB%9Bi+trong+x%C3%A2y+d%E1%BB%B1ng+ch%C3%ADnh+s%C3%A1ch/047599b5-aa18-4c8f-98c0-ee2d264e56c1?version=1.0

2. Methodology of impact assessment, sources of input reports and references.

3. Workplan: Describing in detail the activities and timeline of these activities, including the updates and reports of the results. Potential risks and limitations and suggested corrective actions.

Deliverable 1: An inception report in Vietnamese and English

Task 2: Participate in a technical consultative meeting to discuss the inception report with key relevant stakeholders, including the MOH, VSS, members of the law drafting team, and representatives from development partners.

Deliverable 2: Meeting notes and revised inception report which will be validated by ILO, Legal Department of MOH and HID.

Task 3: Develop the policy impact assessment: Submit the 1^st draft report based on the agreed outline in Task 1. Upon preliminary feedbacks of ILO, HID and LD, revise and submit the 2^nd draft report.

Deliverable 3: 1^st draft report and 2^nd draft report which will be reviewed by ILO, Legal department and HID.

Task 4: Participate and present key findings of the report in a consultative workshop. HID may consider to send the draft report to the key stakeholders for their comments. The consultant should examine and consolidate all the comments in a report, explaining which comments will be incorporated in the report, and the comments not incorporated in the report should be clearly justified.

Deliverable 4: Presentation and comments notes. 

Task 5: Finalize the report incorporating the comments from the workshop and other important stakeholders such as VSS, MOJ, Government Office, National Assembly Office, VCCI, VGCL and other members of the law drafting team.

Deliverable 5: Final report in Vietnamese which will be submitted for final review of the ILO, Legal Department and HID.

The consultancy is expected to work intermittently in 20 working days, starting from 15 September to 30 December 2019, as detailed in the timeline and payment schedule shown above. Consultant fees will be considered based on the UN-EU Guidelines for Financing of local costs in development cooperation with Vietnam (Version 2017).

• The consultant will will work in close collaboration with ILO-Lux CTA, who will clear the quality and technical soundness of all products.
• The ILO consultant will work in close collaboration with Government’s counterparts, the Health Insurance Department (HID) and Legal Department of the MoH and should comply with the leadership and technical instructions of HID.

• Having a graduate degree in law, public administration or relevant degrees; or at least 10 years of experience in legal document development in health sector.
• Having conducted researches and evaluations on the administrative procedure related to the health sector as the lead or independent researcher.
• Ability to contextualize expertise and deliver complex topics to a non-expert audience. The use of participatory methodologies for the consultation events is a must.
• Excellent writing skills in Vietnamese and adequate English communication skills.
• Excellent team work skills and timely submission of quality work.