Cancellation of “dosage with medicine” should guard against cardiopulmonary bypass

On April 18, the General Office of the State Council issued a notice to “Strengthen the Major Work Arrangements for the Reform of the Medical and Health Care System in 2012”. In 2012, public hospital reforms will eliminate drug additions. This move is expected to break the medical system that originated in the 1950s with "drugs for medicine." The medical problems of the people, such as expensive treatment, expensive medication, and expensive examinations, will be resolved. (Beijing Times, April 19)

Abolishing the sale of drugs in public hospitals and "refilling medicine with medicines" has finally provided an enforceable document and it is undoubtedly good news for patients. However, for regulators, how to prevent the system of "preventing medicine by using drugs" from appearing and spreading outside the system to allow patients to truly benefit is no doubt a test of their wisdom.

At present, all local hospitals are basically implementing the system of bidding and procurement of medicines. Drugs from the factory to the tender, to the hospital, and finally to the patients, the difference may be several times, several dozen times or even higher. Among these, the "Mingbu" in the hospital's system of selling in the difference accounted for only a very small part, and most of them were eaten by the doctors, such as doctor rebates and intermediate links. In other words, if the drug procurement and procurement system is not well implemented, even if the “zero rate” of hospital drug price injection is implemented, the patient will still need to use expensive drugs to save more money.

According to this work arrangement, measures such as appropriate enhancement of fiscal payment and increase of medical examination fees should be made to compensate for the reduction of hospital revenues caused by the cancellation of the drug differential rate. There is no problem with this book. However, if over-treatment and examination problems are not yet solved, "tonic medicine" can not only effectively reduce the burden on patients, but also disguised as "amulets" for doctors and hospital patients. Because it is unclear whether or not the extent of the inspection should be checked, some unscrupulous doctors are likely to pass "ambiguous zones," over-examined, and over-medical, and the standards are higher than before. This fear runs counter to the original intention of the medical reform.