In a bid to lower medical expenses, China on Saturday ended a much-criticised system at public hospitals in Beijing under which patients were forced to buy costly medicines from the same hospital they were admitted to.
Starting today, 2,605 Beijing hospitals switched to a new billing system which replaced a registration and treatment fee with a higher medical service charge, but scraped the previous mark-up on drugs, which was as high as 15 per cent in the old pricing system.
Beijing became the first to scrap the much-criticised previous system under which public hospitals made money by charging patients more on drugs which they have to buy from the same hospital. The reform is applicable to more than 3,600 medical institutions citywide, while some 1,000 small village clinics are not yet equipped with computerised billing system, Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson with Beijing health and family planning commission said.