Guangzhou residents trial credit payments for medical services

A total of 10 hospitals in Guangzhou are taking the lead in a pilot project to enable patients to pay their medical expenses using a new e-payment system.

The product was launched on Dec 28, 2017 by the Hospital Association of Guangdong province, leading domestic mobile payment service provider Alipay and Guangdong Yunhui Technology Co.

The special "credit-payment" system can save patients' time by 60 percent, according to Liu Shiming, head of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, one of the 10 hospitals engaged in the project.

Residents in Guangzhou can download the app "Guangdong Cloud Hospital" and activate the credit-payment for medical service, and then authorize the services for "free payment without password" and "huabei", or Ant Check Later, a loan and installment service.

According to Wang Bo, general manager of the Innovation and Smart Service Division of Ant Financial Services Group, a financial affiliate of Alibaba Group, the medical expenses will be paid automatically from the user's Alipay account once the patients pay their medical bills at the hospital.

If there are insufficient funds in their Alipay accounts, the huabei will provide a 1,000-yuan ($151) loan to cover the expense.

Meanwhile, users can access real-time medical insurance settlement of their medical bills at designated hospitals. In the future, it will allow them to be exempt from deposit for hospitalization.

The 10 hospitals include the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and Guangzhou First People's Hospital.

The service will be available in more hospitals in the city at a later date, according to Wang, who said that his company will work with more medical institutions and partners to further improve the service.