The State Council has issued a notification outlining key medical system reforms for 2024, aiming to guide local governments in further fulfilling their responsibilities to comprehensively deepen the medical reform process.
- The government will initiate a new round of national drug and medical consumable volume-based procurement (VBP), with provinces required to conduct at least one round of provincial or provincial alliance VBP to reach a goal of 500 VBP drugs in China, continuously promoting medical consumable VBP. Additionally, the implementation of VBP will be accelerated, and the balance retention of VBP medical insurance fund for use will be implemented.
- Mongolia, Zhejiang, and Sichuan will pilot provincial (regional) projects to deepen the reform of medical service prices, guiding pilot cities like Tangshan, Suzhou, Xiamen, Ganzhou, and Leshan to explore new mechanisms for medical service pricing. The dynamic adjustment of medical service prices will be promoted, with price adjustments completed in regions meeting evaluation criteria.
- In 2024, all coordinated regions will implement reforms of the diagnosis-related group (DRG) payment system or Diagnosis Intervention Packets (DIP) payment system, establishing reasonable payment standards and dynamic adjustment mechanisms.
- Methods for connecting medical service revenue surpluses with the salary system will be researched and developed. Ensuring stable income and effective incentives for medical personnel, and further leveraging the salary system’s guarantee function. Internal allocation guidance and supervision in hospitals will be strengthened, prohibiting revenue targets for departments and medical staff, with medical staff salaries not linked to business income such as drug sales, sanitary materials, patient assessments, or laboratory testing.
- The per capita financial subsidy standard for basic public health services will increase by RMB 5. Disease control supervisor pilot systems in medical institutions will be promoted, and public health physicians will be empowered with prescription rights.
- National medical centers and national regional medical centers (dual centers) will be established according to plan, promoting dual center construction projects. Compact county-level medical communities will be comprehensively promoted, strengthening county-level hospital capacity, and encouraging county-level traditional Chinese medicine hospitals to establish compact county-level medical communities.
- Approximately 8,000 rural targeted free undergraduate medical students will be recruited for township health centers in central and western regions. The special plan for college student rural doctors will continue, with policies integrating college student village doctors into township health center staffing and management since 2020. The proportion of practicing (assistant) physicians in the rural doctor team will be further increased.
- The per capita financial subsidy standard for resident medical insurance will increase by RMB 30, guiding local governments to implement policies for classifying subsidies to participate in basic medical insurance, ensuring all eligible medical insurance is covered. Guiding documents on standardizing customized commercial medical insurance in cities will be developed, promoting the expansion of innovative drug payment scope for commercial health insurance products, and pilot projects for online rapid settlement of medical expenses for commercial health insurance will be explored.
- Synergy between the National Essential Drug List (NEDL) and the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), drug VBP, and generic quality consistency evaluation will be promoted, with the NEDL optimized and adjusted in a timely manner. Policy documents on establishing a drug linkage management mechanism in grassroots medical and health institutions will be formulated. Comprehensive clinical evaluation of innovative drugs will be intensified, promoting the accelerated and rational application of new drugs. The review and approval of innovative drugs, rare disease treatment drugs, clinically urgently needed drugs, as well as innovative medical devices and epidemic prevention and control drugs will be accelerated. The fifth batch of the list of children’s drugs encouraged for research and development, and the fourth batch of the list of generic drugs encouraged for development will be released.- Flcube.com
