國家衛生健康委、財政部、國家醫保局等6部門日前聯合印發《關於規範公立醫療機構預交金管理工作的通知》，要求公立醫療機構自2025年3月31日起全面停止收取門診預交金，自2025年6月30日起降低住院預交金額度。

The notice requires that public medical institutions should refer to the average hospitalization expenses and personal out-of-pocket expenses actually incurred by inpatients with the same disease in the previous 3 years, and reasonably determine the amount of hospitalization prepayment, and the amount of hospitalization prepayment for medical insurance patients should be reduced to the average level of individual out-of-pocket payment for the same disease and type of insurance.

According to the notice, relevant local departments should guide public medical institutions to optimize the process of inpatient advance payment and hospitalization fee settlement, and comprehensively improve the timeliness of services. In principle, public medical institutions should complete the settlement of hospitalization expenses within 24 working days after the patient is discharged, and gradually realize the settlement within 0 hours.

This notice applies to all types of public medical institutions at all levels, medical insurance designated medical institutions and military-sponsored medical and health institutions, and non-public medical institutions can refer to the implementation.

What is an outpatient deposit?

The advance payment is different from the registration fee, which refers to a deposit that patients need to pay in advance before outpatient or hospitalization to protect the cost of follow-up treatment, which is also the traditional charging method of public hospitals. In the 80s of the 0th century, in order to reduce the number of patient queues and shorten the waiting time for payment, medical institutions successively set up inpatient prepayment and outpatient prepayment.

Previously, many places have canceled the outpatient prepayment, and this time it is a complete cancellation for public medical institutions across the country, and the outpatient prepayment paid by patients will be refunded within a limited time.

Comprehensive Chinese government website, Xinhua News Agency, CCTV news

Source: China Women's Daily