Health & Beauty

As we all know, as early as 2019, the National Medical Insurance Bureau began to establish a nationally unified medical bidding and procurement platform covering the province, in order to promote the interconnection of relevant information such as drug consumables prices, resource sharing, and promote the national linkage of drug consumables prices.

As of September 2020, there is official news that the 14 business subsystems of the unified national medical insurance information platform and the national procurement platform for pharmaceutical consumables have completed the preliminary inspection and entered the trial operation stage.

When will it be launched nationwide and officially put into use?

In response to this issue, China Medical Insurance recently interviewed Yan Juan, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Society of Social Security and executive deputy director of the Medical Insurance Special Committee.

In the report, Deputy Director Yan said: At present, the coding mapping and test operation of each province have basically been completed, and the standard implementation and acceptance work is proceeding in an orderly manner. The 27 provinces (cities, districts) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps that have launched the national medical security information platform across the country have all carried out online and offline standard implementation inspections. Among them, 13 provinces have passed the national inspection and acceptance, including Tianjin, Anhui, Hainan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Corps, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Tibet, Chongqing, Shandong, Liaoning, etc.; areas that have not yet submitted national acceptance will complete the acceptance before the end of November this year, which will make a national unified medical insurance information platform put into use before the end of this year Get ready.

In other words, after three years, this national consumables procurement platform integrating bidding, procurement, trading, settlement and supervision will be put into use nationwide by the end of this year!

here we go!

Migration of medical consumables data to the national platform

It will be put into use at the end of the year, are you fully prepared? As early as two months ago, Hebei Province had started a pilot project to migrate medical consumables data to the national platform.

In August this year, the Hebei Provincial Medical Drug Equipment Centralized Procurement Center issued a piece of information "Notice on the migration of medical consumables data from Handan and other four cities to the national platform." The first batch of all medical consumables data for online transactions in Handan, Tangshan, Qinhuangdao, and Zhangjiakou will be simultaneously migrated to the national platform.

After migrating to the National Medical Insurance Bureau platform, all medical institutions in Handan and other four cities must purchase medical consumables on the provincial and national platforms, and the original consumables platform procurement transaction function in Handan and other four cities ceased operation. Perhaps after the four cities in Hebei Province have completed the migration and opened up the "checkpoints" for centralized procurement, the next step is to land on a large scale.

Moreover, in addition to Hebei Province, just yesterday (October 15), the Shandong Provincial Government Procurement Center also issued a notice that the first batch of medical consumables data migration on the centralized procurement platform for medical equipment in Shandong also began.

According to the Shandong Province "Notice on Data Migration of the Centralized Procurement Platform for Medical Consumables", this time Shandong Province will migrate the first batch of databases of the centralized procurement platform for medical consumables to the Shandong Province Centralized Procurement Platform for Pharmaceutical Equipment (and the national platform).

In addition to the start of data migration, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have also issued policies this year to clean up products that do not have the classification and code of national medical insurance medical consumables, laying the foundation for promoting the implementation of the national unified information platform.

For the time being, Guocai has cut prices by over 90% and 80%, respectively, in the first two cities, and the third city has also been "crazy." The original circulation mode is lifted, and more supporting measures are also improving the follow-up consumable collection process under the continuous running-in of production, sales, distribution, and use.

It is conceivable that after the national unified recruitment and procurement platform is put into use, the scope and intensity of the procurement of medical consumables will be extraordinary under the national game of unified recruitment and price linkage. At the same time, another brand-new "ecology" will be formed in response to the problem of "returning money" in the centralized procurement of consumables.

National unified medical insurance and direct settlement of enterprises

The hospital is completely out

In the procurement process of consumables, equipment, and medicines, public hospitals have always been very strong as purchasers. In the procurement process, the supply is always first and then the payment is made. As a result, slow collection of payments from hospitals has become the norm in the industry.

Before centralized procurement, third-party intermediaries relieved most of the financial pressure for the company, but it is clear that this road is not working now. After a large number of intermediary agents are eliminated, the company will not only reduce product prices and reduce profits, but also bear all the funds. pressure.

In order to solve this problem, in June this year, the National Medical Insurance Bureau and other eight departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of the Centralized Procurement and Use of High-Value Medical Consumables by National Organizations", which clearly requires that medical institutions should promptly settle with the enterprise in accordance with the procurement contract. The clearing time shall not exceed the end of the next month after the delivery is accepted. But obviously, the regulations and requirements will never keep up with the "changes" of medical institutions, and the difficulty in collecting money is still the most annoying thing for all participating companies in centralized procurement.

Fortunately, there are not no provinces that dare to chew on the "hard bones". In the "Guiding Opinions on the Centralized Purchase and Use of Medical Consumables" issued by the Eighth Ministry of the State, it is also proposed to promote direct settlement between medical insurance funds and enterprises.

Subsequently, as the first province in the country, Shandong Province issued a heavy notice in August this year, thoroughly implementing the national guidelines and requirements, and starting the direct settlement procedures between medical insurance funds and enterprises.

In the “Implementation Plan for Direct Settlement of Medical Insurance Funds for Drugs and Medical Consumables in Medical Insurance Designated Public Medical Institutions and Pharmaceutical Enterprises” issued by Shandong Medical Insurance, it is stated that by the end of 2021, relying on the regulatory platform to first carry out national and Shandong provincial organizations to focus Direct settlement of the purchase of medicines and consumables.

And this plan was quickly implemented. On the 29th of last month, the Medical Insurance Bureau of Dezhou City, Shandong Province stated that it officially started the direct settlement of the medical insurance fund for drugs and medical consumables with pharmaceutical companies.

The Dezhou Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau stated that in October, direct settlement of the procurement of national and provincial centralized procurement of drugs and medical consumables by public medical institutions at the second level and above was carried out. In November, direct settlement of the procurement of pharmaceutical consumables by the basic-level public medical institutions on the provincial platform was carried out.

In other words, starting from this month, all companies in Dezhou City that participate in national and provincial centralized procurement of drugs and medical consumables will be paid directly by the medical insurance, and the hospital will be directly discharged.

If there is the first person to eat crabs, there will be a group of people. Moreover, with the advent of the national unified recruitment platform, the direct settlement of medical insurance funds and consumables companies will also be a matter of course. The "triangular debt" problem that has been insoluble for many years between medical insurance, hospitals, and suppliers will also be completely solved from the source!