On April 27, the National Health Commission’s Medical Administration and Medical Administration Bureau recently issued a “Notice on Issuing the Key Points of Correcting Improper Practices in the Field of Pharmaceutical Purchase and Sales and Medical Services in 2021” (hereinafter referred to as the “Notice”).
The “Notice” shows that nine departments of the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration of Taxation, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Medical Insurance Administration, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued the “Key Points of Correcting Unfair Practices in the Field of Pharmaceutical Purchase and Sales and Medical Services in 2021”, which clarified the key points of the new round of rectification of unhealthy practices in the field of pharmaceutical purchase and sales.
It is worth noting that based on the key points of correcting unhealthy practices in the field of pharmaceutical purchase and sales in 2020, the state will be more stringent in rectifying the medical field in 2021, and focus more on medical device companies.
Strictly investigate excessive inspections and continue to rectify red envelope kickbacks
Among the key points of a new round of rectification of unhealthy pharmaceutical purchase and sales in 2021, nine departments emphasized that before the end of December, the National Medical Insurance Administration will take the lead, and the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine will cooperate to strictly investigate decomposed hospitalizations, hanging bed hospitalizations, excessive diagnosis and treatment, excessive inspections, decomposed prescriptions in violation of diagnosis and treatment standards, repeated charges, excessive charges, decomposed project charges, etc.
At the same time, the National Health Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine have taken the lead respectively in accordance with their respective responsibilities to continue to rectify medical chaos such as accepting “red envelopes”, improve the return visit system, smooth reporting channels, strengthen clue investigation, and correct behaviors such as accepting “red envelopes”, adding extra items during surgery, “increasing prices with a knife”, treating minor illnesses, repeating inspections, and bundling sales of medicines and consumables.
In fact, since 2020, the National Health Commission has emphasized the need to increase special efforts to rectify the issue of red envelope kickbacks in the purchase and sale of consumables in hospitals, and to monitor the external interactions of deans, directors and even relevant medical staff in departments.
After the implementation of this requirement, countless deans have been dismissed for accepting kickbacks since 2020, and it is more common for medical device sales to be taken away directly from hospitals on suspicion of bribery.
Credit rating restrictions have been imposed, and punishments have been repeatedly strengthened
In addition, regarding the issue of kickbacks in the field of pharmaceutical purchase and sales, the work points stated that in the future, a high-pressure posture will be maintained to crack down on “kickbacks”.
Focus on the management of kickbacks with the heads of medical institutions, heads of key departments, and heads of departments involving drugs, equipment, consumables, reagents, equipment, infrastructure, etc., in terms of drugs, medical consumables, diagnosis and treatment projects, and service facilities, etc., make full use of public hospital performance assessment, medical big data supervision, and the use of selected products from centralized procurement, and carry out special inspections on kickback issues. Verified problems must be dealt with strictly in accordance with laws and regulations. Clues on illegal commercial bribery such as kickbacks paid by relevant enterprises and bundled promotion of pharmaceuticals and consumables will be handed over to the market supervision department for processing.
Not only that, nine ministries and commissions have particularly emphasized the need to comprehensively build a “pro-purity” type of clean and standardized medical-business relationship in 2021.
It is strictly prohibited to transfer benefits under any name; it is strictly prohibited to accept benefits from corporate property, accept entertainment, and receive remuneration. Strengthen the supervision of subordinate personnel, and detect, remind and correct early signs and tendencies that arise in the interactions between relevant staff and personnel of relevant enterprises. Clues about illegal activities and violations by enterprises related to profit transfer shall be handed over to the market supervision department for handling.
Illegal behaviors and clues to problems such as medical-business collusion, profit transfer, commercial bribery, false invoicing, tax evasion, etc. discovered during the correction work must be strictly investigated and quickly resolved. Relying on the centralized procurement market for drugs and medical consumables, we will implement credit ratings for the drugs and consumables involved in the case, and adopt restrictive measures such as restricting or suspending network access and procurement, and disclosing untrustworthy information.
It can be seen from the above work directions that with the continuous strengthening of rectification in the field of pharmaceutical purchase and sales, the state’s attention to medical device companies is slowly increasing, and the punishment of medical device companies is also constantly increasing.
In September 2020, after the National Medical Insurance Administration issued the “Guiding Opinions on Establishing a Pharmaceutical Price and Recruitment Credit Evaluation System”, the untrustworthy behaviors of equipment companies in the processes of pricing, bidding, contract performance, and marketing are all within the scope of monitoring.
In accordance with the requirements of the “blacklist” system and based on the nature, circumstances, timeliness, impact and other factors of the dishonest behavior, the dishonesty of pharmaceutical companies in the local bidding and procurement market will be assessed into four levels: general, medium, serious and particularly serious, which will be dynamically updated every quarter.
Companies and individuals involved in untrustworthy conduct will face a series of disciplinary measures including being restricted from engaging in bidding activities, being disqualified from fiscal subsidies, strengthening tax monitoring and management, and increasing loan interest rates.