Sun Zhigang: seek new breakthroughs in medical reform

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2014-06-04

Complete 17 tasks and 67 work targets this year

Q: What important tasks need to be done in health reform this year?

A: The Work Arrangements for the Reform of the Medical and Health Care System in Five Key Aspects (2011) issued by the General Office of the State Council set 17 tasks and 67 work targets. This year's important health reform tasks include improving the benefit of basic medical schemes and implementing the essential drugs system in all government-funded medical institutions at community level.

According to the work arrangement, the basic insurance coverage for employees, urban and rural residents will be raised above 90 percent. Medical subsidies from the governments at various levels for new rural cooperative medical scheme and urban residents insurance will rise from 120 yuan to 200 yuan per person every year.

Hospitalization expense reimbursement will be raised this year. Reimbursement for urban residents insurance and the new rural cooperative medical scheme will rise 10 percentage to 70 percent, with maximum compensation no less than 50,000 yuan. In addition, more outpatient services will be reimbursed from a single funding pool and more support will go to serious disease treatment. At the same time, the country will promote instant medical expense settlement and transfer and linkage between regions and basic medical schemes to raise the overall planning level of health insurance.

This year, we will implement an essential drugs system at all government-funded medical institutions at community level to kick off the zero-profit medicine sales. We will establish a standard essential medicines procurement mechanism and rebuild a drug supply system for community level medical institutions to ensure drug safety and efficacy, reasonable drug prices and timely drug supply at community level. We will vigorously promote comprehensive reform of the medical and health care institutions at community level and establish a flexible employment mechanism based on performance. We will secure government input, establish a long-term and stable multi-channel financing mechanism, increase the basic medical service fees and adjust health insurance payment policy. We will fully carry out performance-based payment to set up a performance-based incentive mechanism. We will support regional government to formulate subsidy and supportive policies for village doctors based on individual regional circumstances.

We will raise basic public health service expenditures from 15 yuan to 25 yuan per capita this year to offer more kinds of public health service for children, elderlypeople, and pregnant and lying-in women, as well as enable rural migrant workers to have access to basic public health services.

We will also step up efforts for public hospital reform in pilot cities and make bold explorations to strive for substantive breakthroughs. We will actively promote comprehensive county-level hospital reform to improve their service capacity. We’ll take measures to incentivize medical staff and implement policies that encourage private capital involving the medical industry to make things convenient for the public.