The National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) has announced an expansion of its medical services pricing reform initiative, designating Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, and Sichuan provinces as pilot regions to further deepen the reform of medical service pricing. These provinces join the existing pilot cities of Tangshan in Hebei, Suzhou in Jiangsu, Xiamen in Fujian, Ganzhou in Jiangxi, and Leshan in Sichuan, which have been leading the reform efforts since the launch of the “pilot plan” in August 2021.
The overarching goal of the NHSA’s “Deepening Medical Service Pricing Reforms” is to establish a more refined medical service pricing mechanism that incorporates categorized management, hospital participation, and dynamic adjustment. The pilot plan, which aims for nationwide implementation by 2025, has seen the initial five cities focus on key mechanisms such as total price control, classification management, and dynamic pricing adjustments, along with monitoring and evaluation of medical services.
The NHSA reports that the five pilot cities have successfully implemented two rounds of price adjustments under the new mechanism, affecting 1,398 and 5,076 medical service prices respectively. This has led to an increase in prices for services with high technical labor value but low prices, such as nursing, surgery, treatment, and traditional Chinese medicine. Conversely, the prices for inspection and testing projects, which are primarily equipment and material consumption-based, have been reduced. Monitoring and evaluation indicate that the pilot reforms have achieved gradual progress and are in line with the set targets.
The NHSA is committed to leveraging the experiences from the three new provinces and the existing five pilot cities to inform a nationwide rollout of the pricing reform scheme.- Flcube.com
