Beijing patients to pay less for drugs, more for doctors

[Photo provided to China Daily]

A website created by the city includes all information related to medicine costs. People can see names of suppliers, what original prices are being offered, where the drugs are produced, how the drugs function, as well as other details that were not accessible before. Public hospitals are required to sell the drugs at the same price they buy them. That website is http://210.73.89.76/.

More than 3,600 medical institutions citywide are making the change, while some 1,000 small village clinics are not yet equipped with computerized billing system, according to Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson with Beijing City Health and Family Planning Commission.

Gao said total costs for buying drugs are estimated to go down by roughly 20 percent.

To offset that loss in profits to the hospitals, the government encouraged an increase in the price for medical service involving an experienced physician, expertise or staff time. Immediate price jumps can be seen in surgeries, acupuncture and nursing.

For instance, to see a chief physician who has three decades of experience in the field, a patient needed to pay 14 yuan for a diagnosis. Now, the cost is 100 yuan, or 60 yuan if the patient has a public medical insurance.

On the other hand, costs involving medical equipment have gone down. For example, positron emission tomography with computerized tomography, a PET/CT scan, used to cost 10,000 yuan. Now it costs 7,000 yuan. The cost for magnetic resonance imaging, or an MRI, went from 850 yuan to 450-600 yuan, the city government says.

Xinhua contributed to this story.