The impact of separating drug sales from medical services reform on mechanism of controlling outpatient and emergency expenses in Beijing / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

Objective:To evaluate the impact and analyze the mechanism of separating drug sales from medical services reform on the total medical expenditure containment of outpatient services in Beijing. Methods:The monitoring data and historical data from 89 third-level,78 second-level public hospitals,and 206 primary health institutions and community health service agencies,which participated in the reform,were analysed to estimate the impacts on outpa-tient service utilization and service price. The analysis was based on the data of the first and second quarters of 2016 outpatient and emergency department fee changes,and analysis of service utilization and service price factors on the im-pact of changes in outpatient and emergency services mechanism. Results:The total outpatients'expenditure in Beijing in the second quarter of 2017 was 17.38 billion yuan,representing a slight decrease of 1.14% than the expenditure in 2016. The growth rate reduced by 2.46%. Expenditure in third-level and second-level hospitals decreased by 2.82% and 3.02%,respectively,with reductions in growth rates of 4.06% and 3.74% respectively. Expenditure in primary institutions increased by 17.09%. The increase rate in the second quarter of 2017 was 26.28%,representing a remark-able increase compared to the rate in 2016(15.84%). The contribution from the medical institution service prices and service utilization to the change of outpatient and emergency medical expenditure containment was 6.98% and -7. 65%,respectively. For third-level hospitals,the contribution was 10.37% and -12.00%,respectively;second-level hospitals were 0.72% and -3.35%,respectively;and the primary health institutions was 6.08% and 9.57%. Con-clusions:Beijing's comprehensive reform of separating drug sales from medical services reform has effectively controlled the rising medical expenditure of outpatient services,mainly by adjusting outpatients service utilization between differ-ent level healthcare institutions.