Li Bin, minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, urged public hospitals to push for hierarchical diagnosis and treatment development on June 13, when she attended a public hospital reform symposium held in Fujian’s Sanming city.

Li said that the medical union integrates community -level and big urban hospitals, as well as general and specialized hospitals. “It enables free medical resource circulation and paves the way for establishing a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system,” said Li.

She asked urban public hospitals to make full use of the medical union to send quality resources to the grassroots level and guide patients to seek treatment. At the same time, Li called on all parties to carry out various support policies for the grassroots level to upgrade services and establish a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system featuring primary diagnosis at the grassroots level, a two-way referral system, separated treatment for acute and chronic diseases, and dynamic cooperation.

Li also proposed basing medical costs on disease and conduct prepayment and other medical insurance payment reforms to promote mixed payment modes, establishing a negotiation payment mechanism among insurance and medical institutes and drug suppliers, upgrading services, enhancing the medical insurance incentive and constraint mechanism for medical service, controlling unreasonable medical expense growth, and ensuring medical insurance fund security and use efficiency.

Li said that China has seen fast growth in fiscal health expenditure at all levels in recent years, mainly in health care. She asked all parties to improve basic medical and serious illness insurance as well as the medical assistance system to avoid any unethical events.