Changsha launches one-stop payment service in healthcare

On Aug 1, Changsha implemented a one-stop healthcare payment service to alleviate the economic burden of poor patients, according to the Changsha human resources and social security bureau.

The one-stop healthcare payment platform for poverty alleviation is a customized hospital payment management system for poor rural patients based on the medical insurance system of urban and rural residents of Changsha.

Leaders of the Changsha Human Resources and Social Security Bureau said that the system integrates all healthcare policies for the poor in rural areas. It ensures that poor rural patients receive on-the-spot reimbursements of various medical security policies. Patients only need to pay out-of-pocket expenses, and do not need to submit relevant materials to multiple departments.

The one-stop payment service allows poor households to complete all reimbursement items at a single service window in the hospital. The powerful one-step payment platform will be able to identify patients automatically by swiping their social security cards in the city's designated medical institutions.

The platform will calculate the claimed expenses that meet all the policies according to the identity of each inpatient, and patients will not have to settle their own expenses until they are discharged from the hospital. Patients will also receive a checklist clearly stating the amount of their compensation for each policy and the cumulative cost of their hospital visit.

Within one week of the implementation of the platform, 2,048 poor households in the city have benefitted from the one-stop payment service. Total medical expenses were 5.66 million yuan ($820,060), with a total reimbursement of 5.21 million yuan. The average reimbursement rate for poor patients was 92 percent.