Before May 20, the Beijing Normal University will present their medical reform scheme. This is the seventh medical reform scheme proposed by related Chinese medical research teams. The six previous medical reform schemes will be presented late this month as scheduled. According to the seventh medical reform scheme, the total costs for the medical reform will reach 100 billion yuan, less than the 200 billion yuan that the Ministry of Health previously estimated, the China Business reported.

The Beijing Normal University's medical research team had signed a joint agreement with the State Development and Reform Commission, which heads the medical reform, and the Ministry of Health to become an independent institution for the seventh medical reform scheme, said He Ping, director of the Social Security Research Institute.

Our scheme aims at providing basic healthcare to everyone in a most cost effective and highly efficient way, an expert involved in drafting the scheme told this reporter.

According to the seventh scheme, the government will be the main responsible entity for collecting medical funds. Acting as the public's representative, the government will negotiate with medical institutions to pay for the medical services they provide to patients. Patients will not need to pay directly to these medical institutions. Instead, they will buy medical insurance from the government. Based on the number of people who participate in the medical insurance system, the government will then buy medical services from medical institutions. This is different from the operation of the current medical system, by which medical costs are determined by the number of patients, the kinds of diseases treated, and the types of medical services provided, the expert said.

The most distinctive feature of the seventh scheme is that the government will pay a fixed amount of medical insurance based on the number of people participating in the medical insurance system. Therefore the income made by medical institutions will be fixed. With such fixed income, medical institutions will naturally choose treatment methods that are highly efficient and cost effective, so as to reduce their costs, the expert added.

"With the seventh medical reform scheme, doctors will not look forward to patients coming to their hospital for treatment, as they do now. On the contrary, they will try every means to make sure that fewer patients will come to their hospital. In order to realize this goal, doctors will often go to the community centers to treat patients' illnesses. This will reduce patients' medical costs and improve the quality of medical services," the expert noted.

(Chinanews April 18, 2007)