Analysis on the current situation of medical service price from the perspective of medical insurance integration in the Yangtze River Delta / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To sort out the medical service price management in provinces of the Yangtze River Delta, and identify problems in the process of promoting the integration of medical insurance in the said region.Methods:The service price reform policies and current medical service price items specifications as of December 2020 were collected from the official websites of the reform and developmet committees, health comissions and health insurane bureaus of these provinces. Descriptive analysis using R 4.0.2 software were conducted.Results:Given the reform of medical service prices advanced in these provinces successively, the current medical service price items were not yet unified. In terms of the numbers, Jiangsu topped the rest by 4 457 basic items, while Zhejiang ranked the lowest at 3 914. In terms of decomposed items, Zhejiang topped the rest by 1 988, 17.6 times that of Anhui province. In terms of pricing level, the average price of medical services in Shanghai topped the rest by 1 041.6 yuan, while Jiangsu province was the lowest at 768.6 yuan. The price of some items varied by more than 20 times among these provinces.Conclusions:The provinces in the Yangtze River Delta had significant gaps in medical service price items setup and price levels. It is necessary to promote the regional coordinated specifications of medical service price items, further optimize the price levels, improve the methodological system of medical service price comparison, and promote the integration of medical insurance in the Yangtze River Delta.