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The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed improving the mechanism to support the development of innovative drugs and medical devices. How is the NHSA promoting the clinical application of new technologies, equipment and consumables? Thank you.

Yan Qinghui:

Thank you for your question. The NHSA has always supported the innovation of medical technology and promoted the high-quality development of health care services by improving its pricing policies. The NHSA has organized experts to speed up the compilation of national standards for medical service price items. In accordance with the principle of successively releasing in batches once each is mature, it has currently issued nine batches of approval guidelines for obstetrics, nursing and other areas, and standardized the medical service price items of related disciplines, highlighting a medical service-oriented approach. 

In view of the feedback from medical institutions and related enterprises hoping to speed up the price approvals of new technology, equipment and consumables, the NHSA has guided all provinces to further smooth channels for increasing medical service price items. Green channels have been opened and approvals have been accelerated for major innovation projects that optimize diagnostic and treatment plans for major diseases or fill gaps in the treatment of them. For improvement-oriented innovation projects, we refined the existing price items and met the reasonable charging demands in a balanced manner. Concerning other new price items, we accelerated the approval procedures, and fully met the reasonable charging needs of new technologies, equipment and consumables at different innovation levels. Since 2022, more than 1,000 new price items have been added each year in each province, and a number of high-quality innovative technologies, equipment and consumables have been put into clinical application, allowing innovative medical technologies to better benefit the people.

Next, the NHSA will earnestly implement the spirit of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, accelerate the compilation of national standards for medical service price items, continue to guide all provincial health care insurance departments to enhance the management of new items based on clinical value and innovation quality, speed up the handling of applications for adding items if they involve major innovative technologies such as medical equipment that gain priority review and approval by the National Medical Products Administration, as well as promote the development of new quality productive forces in the medical field. At the same time, we will also strengthen the quality control of innovation to prevent low-quality and fake innovation from disrupting the market environment or squeezing the medical insurance funds. We also hope that relevant enterprises will effectively improve their innovation quality, ensure proper disclosure of information on the prices of high-value medical consumables involved in new price items, and accept public supervision and peer review. Thank you.