Over the years, China's health insurance system has been improving, and many people rely on their health insurance cards to save money when they visit the doctor.
Health insurance cards are very important in everyday life, especially in the case of hospitalization, because there is a big difference between having health insurance and not having it.
And just recently, China's health insurance system underwent a major overhaul.
On Aug. 26, the National Health Insurance Bureau officially released to the public the "Guidance on Establishing and Improving the Outpatient Coordination Payment Mechanism for Employee Health Insurance" (draft for comment).
The document includes certain reforms to the current health insurance system and proposes two major changes.
The first change is the expansion of health insurance reimbursement, which is reflected in two aspects.
On the one hand, it establishes a mechanism for outpatient out-of-pocket expenses and raises the reimbursement rate from 50 percent, i.e., it brings minor and common outpatient illnesses into the scope of health insurance financing payments.
Not only that, the previous health insurance only covered the cost of designated medical institutions, but the reform will be expanded to cover the cost of medicines, medical consumables and small medical equipment purchased at pharmacies.
At the same time, the scope of reimbursement for medical insurance has been expanded. Previously, only personal medical expenses could be reimbursed, but after the reform it will also be possible to reimburse the medical expenses of spouses, parents and children.
The second change is the method of crediting health insurance accounts.
Previously, 2 percent of individual contributions and 30 percent of unit contributions to medical insurance were credited to individual accounts.
After the reform, all unit contributions will go into the medical insurance fund and will no longer be credited to individual accounts.
So, with this series of reforms, how will it be most economical to use health insurance cards in the future? Here are two key points.
First, get into the habit of using your health insurance card to reimburse for common illnesses.
With the outpatient self-funding system in place, common illnesses such as fever and enteritis are now at least 50 percent reimbursable, cutting costs in half compared with the past when they were not.
Some people may not have enough money in their health insurance accounts to save for a major illness later.
However, when it comes to health care, there's no guarantee that you won't get a major illness in the future, so it's best to save for minor illnesses so you can use the balance when you have it.
When you buy medications at the pharmacy, make sure those that are reimbursable are reimbursed.
The next step is to learn how to transfer health insurance cards between family members.
The reason for this is that the employee's own health insurance card can be used to reimburse family members in the future, so whether it's for a major illness or a minor one, or when purchasing medicines or medical equipment, the employee can take the family health insurance card and transfer it for reimbursement, saving money in advance.
In the future, the body to pay for health insurance will be transferred to the integrated account, so the balance of the integrated account of the health insurance card in the future will be more, can only be used for reimbursement, so in the future, the money of the health insurance card to try to use for reimbursement, in the final analysis, or in the hands of the most cost-effective please note.