MASTV:

As the frequency of population mobility increases, people's demand for seeking medical service in different places is also increasing. What is the progress of directly settling medical expenses incurred outside a patient's home province? What other measures will be introduced to boost convenience for people in the next step? Thank you.

Hu Jinglin:

Thank you. I'll answer your questions.

The direct settlement of medical expenses incurred outside of a patient's home province is directly related to people's access to medical treatment. Since the establishment of the NHSA, we have acted in accordance with the policy decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, focusing on the inconvenience of reimbursing medical expenses incurred outside the home province. We have vigorously promoted the direct settlement of such expenses. Progress has been made in the following four areas:

First, it is more convenient for people to settle inpatient expenses incurred outside their home province. At present, there are 68,800 designated medical institutions within an inter-provincial network of hospitalization expenses, an eight-fold increase over 2017. The rate of directly settling inpatient expenses incurred outside of the home province has increased from less than 5% in 2017 to about 65% in 2022, benefiting a total of 20.3876 million people.

Second, a breakthrough has been made in the direct settlement of general outpatient services across provinces. At least one designated medical institution in each county can directly reimburse outpatient expenses for cross-provincial medical treatment. There is a network of 382,100 designated medical institutions for general outpatient services settlement across provinces, benefiting a total of 69.5991 million people.

Third, progress has been made in directly settling treatment costs related to outpatient chronic and specific critical diseases across provinces. At least one designated medical institution in each area of overall planning will be able to directly reimburse the expenses of five types of outpatient chronic and specific critical diseases, namely hypertension, diabetes, outpatient radiotherapy for malignant tumors, dialysis for uremia, and anti-rejection treatment after organ transplantation. There are 24,600 designated medical institutions nationwide within inter-provincial networks for outpatient chronic and specific critical diseases settlement, benefiting 730,200 people.

Fourth, the cross-provincial registration for medical services has been continuously optimized. In recent years, we continue to expand the scope of people who can access the cross-provincial registration system and reduce the documents required for filing procedures. At the same time, relying on the national unified online filing systems such as the app of the National Medical Insurance Service platform and the WeChat official account of the NHSA, we have realized online and mobile filing for medical treatment in different places. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has also implemented the policy of "regarding drug purchasing and medical treatment as the filing" within the region. There is no need to go through the filing procedures, and patients will be able to directly use the settlement service for medical treatment in the region.

In the next step, we will further implement the cross-provincial settlement for medical treatment. First, we will increase publicity of the policy. In June, we will conduct a one-month nationwide intensive promotion for the policies of cross-provincial medical treatment so as to inform more insured people to acknowledge the methods of filing for medical treatment in other places. Second, we will continue to expand the coverage. We will promote more medical institutions to be designated for the cross-provincial settlement of medical bills so that insured people are able to access the convenient direct settlement services for medical expenses incurred outside of their home provinces. Third, we will continue to optimize the filing process and encourage more regions to conduct self-filing for cross-provincial medical services, continue to increase the proportion of direct settlement and make it easier for people seeking medical treatment in other places. Thanks!