CRI听力:Beijing launches medical reform, separating hospital service from pharmacy

A new medical reform program is officially underway in Beijing as of this Saturday, with expectations the policy changes will end up giving patients more healthcare options and more access to the medications they need. CRI's Min Rui has more.

Under the new rules, public hospitals are be barred from marking up prescription drug prices and from imposing various levels of consultation fees on patients.

Instead, hospitals are now only able to charge a single medical service fee.

The medical service fee will replace the previous registration, diagnosis and treatment fees.

The director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning is Fang Laiying.

"The medical affairs fee is a kind of compensation for the cost of medical activities at a hospital. The medical affairs service fees vary. For example, the starting fee is 20 yuan for a community hospital, with a patient paying 1 yuan and medical insurance paying the rest. For Class III hospitals, the starting fee is 50 yuan, with a patient to pay 10 yuan and their medical insurance to pay the rest."

The reforms are spread across all 36-hundred hospitals in Beijing.

The goal is to give Class III hospitals more opportunities to treat difficult and complicated cases.

For patients, the changes should mean shorter waiting times and greater access to medications.

Community hospitals and other medical institutions will be given the same access to medicine which would have otherwise only been available in higher-level hospitals.

A pilot program launched at five different hospitals in Beijing this past year saw drug prices drop by an average of 20 to 30-percent.

Fang Laiying says they believe the new policies will bring about the same results.

"The core of its essence is to make medical services more reasonable, at the same time reduce unreasonable and excessive medical care. And the five experimental hospitals have accumulated rich experience to prove that this road is feasible."

The latest reforms also cover reimbursments.

Under the changes, the cost of 435 different medical services can now be reimbursed from the medical insurance system, except those otherwise provided by the state.

The reform program in Beijing is part of a China-wide effort to end the practice of hospitals supplementing their incomes through sales of medicines, while guaranteeing that medical personnel get recognition for the value of their skills and services.