Highlights of progress in China's medical insurance system

BEIJING -- China's medical insurance system has made further progress over the past year. The following are highlights of key facts and figures provided by the National Healthcare Security Administration.

-- By the end of 2021, China's basic medical insurance covered 1.36 billion people, accounting for over 95 percent of the entire population.

-- The total revenue and expenditure of China's basic medical insurance funds in 2021 reached 2.8 trillion yuan (around $439.7 billion) and 2.4 trillion yuan, respectively.

-- The price of nucleic acid testing was lowered three times in 2021, remaining under 40 yuan per individual test per person.

-- In 2021, China organized three rounds of centralized procurements, which covered 122 types of pharmaceutical products, with an average reduction in price of 52 percent and an estimated annual saving of 40 billion yuan in expenditure.

-- As of the end of 2021, China saw over 13.9 million cases of direct settlement of trans-provincial medical expenses, with over 63.7 billion yuan in payments by medical insurance funds.

-- Throughout 2021, over 708,000 designated healthcare institutions were scrutinized, and over 23 billion yuan in medical insurance funds were retrieved in the interests of the public.

-- Since 2018, the NHSA has adjusted the catalog of medicines covered by medical insurance for four consecutive years and added a total of 507 new items into the catalog.

-- Cumulatively, around 140 million people benefited from medicines with state-organized negotiated prices in 2021, relieving the beneficiaries' monetary burden by 150 billion yuan.