The hospital's "zero price difference in drugs" can be simply understood as zero markup, that is, how much money to buy how much money to sell. And this buying price is the price on the centralized purchasing platform. Hospital drugs must be centralized through the national or provincial procurement platform online. First, due to the implementation of the hospital sales of zero-difference price, the pharmacy to implement not more than 15% markup sales, that is, the hospital drugs and sales price of the same price, while the pharmacy to implement the price of the basis of the price of up to 15% markup sales, coupled with the purchase of different manufacturers of different factors as well as different purchase of the time period, resulting in the same drugs in the hospital and the pharmacy are not the same. Second, the hospital part of the drug prices higher than the social pharmacy situation does exist, the reasons are as follows: 1, the commodity properties of drugs: drugs, although the special nature of life-saving, but in the market economic environment, it is still a commodity, any commodity there will be price differences. For example, there is a big difference between the price of clothing sold in big shopping centers and that in street stalls. 2, the policy level: 1) the national drug price pricing system allows the existence of price differences in drugs, at present, China's drug price pricing has a national price, provincial price, enterprise independent pricing, government bidding price. Inherently there is the reality of the same drug, different places of origin, different manufacturers, different channels of importation of different prices. Therefore, the hospital part of the price of drugs and social pharmacy price differences, is the system, mechanism and market structure of the existence of contradictions and problems of the integrated reflection. It is not a problem of the hospital itself. (2) The hospital can not independently determine the price of drugs. Now our hospital drug prices are the implementation of the centralized bidding and procurement of drugs in Hubei Province, in accordance with national regulations: the implementation of the bidding price of drugs, and can not increase or decrease the price. The Ministry of Health promulgated in 2011, "centralized procurement of drugs supervision and management methods" Article 17 (4) states: "not to implement the centralized procurement of drug prices, secondary bargaining, disguised price, or with the enterprise and then signed a departure from the substantive content of the contract of the supplemental provisions and agreements;" belongs to the violation of the law. "by the health administration, industry and commerce administration and other departments in accordance with the law to deal with:" Third, the social pharmacy procurement of drugs, is directly with cash to the drug logistics company to buy, the sales price can be self-defined. Hospital drug procurement must be purchased from the provincial government drug centralized bidding and purchasing platform. The drug supply company must issue a formal invoice for the sale of drugs, of which the tax rate of 17%. Furthermore, due to the lack of financial compensation to hospitals by the State, hospitals are authorized to add 15% to the purchase price of drugs. This is also one of the reasons for the differences in drug prices. Fourth, hospitals bear the social responsibility of saving lives, disaster emergency, etc., there is no profit of the drug, or the sticker is used; not used up to face the end of the drug, must be prepared. Every hospital, every year, because of the spare drugs reported loss to bear a small amount of costs. Social pharmacy does not assume the responsibility of emergency, disaster, emergency drug supply, you can pick a good sale, there is a profit in the sale of drugs, how many varieties of a pharmacy?300 to 500 on the marvelous. Hospitals routinely stock thousands of medicines. This is comparable? Moreover, the pharmacy price can be set according to market conditions, the hospital is absolutely not. In short, because hospitals and pharmacies into the drug channels are not the same, so the price is not the same, in addition to the hospital drugs are more expensive than the drugstore drugs, hospital drugs are guaranteed regular pharmaceutical brands.
While the prices of hospital drugs are 0% difference, but why are they still so expensive? Let's explore this question below.
One, the production cost of drugs is highThe research and development, production and marketing of drugs cost a huge amount of money. Drug research and development requires a large number of laboratory studies and clinical trials, which cost a lot of human, material and financial resources. At the same time, the production of pharmaceuticals requires the use of high-end equipment and technology, which are also very expensive to invest in. In addition, the production process of drugs needs to comply with various laws, regulations and quality standards, which also increases production costs. Second, the high operating costs of medical institutions The operating costs of medical institutions are also one of the reasons for high drug prices. Medical institutions need to pay staff salaries, medical equipment and medical supplies procurement costs, rent, utilities and other costs, which is passed on to the price of drugs. These costs are especially high for large general hospitals. In addition, medical institutions also need to invest huge sums of money for health prevention and epidemic prevention, medical quality control, which is also part of the operating costs of medical institutions. Third, the cost of drug circulation links in the circulation of drugs in the process, but also need to go through various links of intermediaries, such as wholesalers, retailers, agents, etc., each link needs to extract a portion of the profits, and ultimately make the price of medicines remain high. Fourth, the drug pricing system in the country, the pricing of drugs by the state for uniform regulations, drug prices are 0 difference, but the system of drug pricing there are shortcomings. First of all, the price adjustment is slow, and it often takes several years or even longer to make an adjustment, resulting in price lag. Secondly, as the research and development and production costs of medicines are high, while the prices of medicines are restricted by national policies, this also makes it difficult to make profits and leads to a lack of market supply for some medicines. Therefore, to reduce drug prices, we need to start from several aspects. First, the state should speed up the adjustment of drug prices to ensure that drug prices match production costs. Secondly, it needs to optimize the operating environment of medical institutions and reduce the operating costs of medical institutions so as to reduce drug prices. At the same time, it is necessary to optimize the circulation of drugs and reduce the profit extraction of intermediate links. Finally, the drug pricing system needs to be improved to better balance the relationship between drug prices and R&D and production costs. Only with the efforts of many parties can we really reduce the price of drugs, so that more people can benefit.