With the arrival of the Dragon Boat Festival, nucleic acid testing has become a travel necessity in some areas.On June 2, the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism (JPCM) press conference said that as the holiday approaches, people's travel demand will increase, and the mobility of people and gathering activities may increase the risk of epidemic spread. "It is necessary to do a good job of safeguarding the testing needs of the public, set up nucleic acid testing points in a reasonable manner, reduce queuing time and avoid crowd gathering."
Along with the price, there is also a hot topic, that is, "nucleic acid testing who will pay the bill."
On May 26, the National Health Insurance Bureau formally responded to the cost of normalized nucleic acid testing borne by the local government, some local governments appeared to be "nucleic acid to buy the bill " situation.
The nucleic acid testing market presents AB side: on the one hand, under the demand of epidemic prevention and control, the normalization of nucleic acid is spreading on a large scale; on the other hand, the cost control of nucleic acid testing and the pressure of local finances have become a real problem.
Figure/ic
[Price Adjustment]
Mixed test is as low as $3.4
With refined cost control, is there still room for the price of nucleic acid test to fall?
With the construction of nucleic acid sampling sites and staffing costs projected, fine control of nucleic acid testing costs has begun everywhere.
In the nucleic acid sampling kiosk procurement and other links, Zhengzhou and other places said they will minimize the cost of testing materials through the unified procurement of reagents.
On the other hand, on May 31, Chongqing issued a notice, in order to cooperate with the large-scale screening and normalization of the test, reduce the burden of the masses and social costs, and further reduce the public medical institutions of the new coronary pneumonia nucleic acid test government guide price. Single test down to no more than 16 yuan per person, multi-person mixed test down to no more than 3.5 yuan per person.
This standard stems from the Notice on Further Reducing the Prices of New Crown Virus Nucleic Acid Tests and Antigen Tests issued on May 25 by the National Health Insurance Bureau. The Notice requires localities to reduce the single test for new coronavirus nucleic acid to no more than 16 yuan per person by June 10, the mixed test for multiple people to no more than 5 yuan per person, and the government-guided price for medical services of new coronavirus pneumonia antigen test to no more than 2 yuan per person.
It is worth noting that, which also requires that, for government-organized large-scale screening and regular testing, taking into account the scale effect and the role of grass-roots organizations and volunteers in cost-sharing, multi-person mixed testing in accordance with the standard of no more than 3.5 yuan per person to charge fees.
The price hike is just one step in fine-tuning cost control. In the nucleic acid testing program, alliance collection, bidding networking, regional price linkage and other measures are also being synchronized, nucleic acid testing product prices will continue to introduce a lower range.
Shanxi, Shanghai, Guangdong and Shanxi have also announced price reductions, which are not far from the requirements of the National Health Insurance Bureau. According to the requirements of Shaanxi Province, the maximum price per person is 3.4 yuan (including test reagents), regardless of the number of samples.
According to the cost estimation of nucleic acid testing by ZJSC, according to the standard of 3 days/times, 10 people mixed testing, and 3.5 yuan for a single person, the cost of national nucleic acid testing in June-December is 89.5 billion yuan.
In terms of the standard of "$3.5 for a mixed test" in most areas, the industry believes that there is no room for downward adjustment.
According to a research report by Anxin Securities, the cost of testing nucleic acid for pneumonia mainly includes reagents and consumables, computer costs, sampling costs (including transportation). Among them, reagent consumables are the main cost optimization space, and the price has been significantly reduced through centralized procurement.
Anxin Securities announced on April 29th Yue Lian won the bidding results as an example. Ordinary nucleic acid testing reagents and kits lowest winning bid price of 3.20 yuan, rapid nucleic acid testing reagents and kits lowest winning bid price of 6.05 yuan.
"We believe that the current cost of reagents and consumables for nucleic acid testing has been pressed to the limit, and there is little room for optimization of other costs. Nucleic acid testing services have entered the commercialization stage of 'thin profit and high sales', and there is very limited room for further price reductions."
[Payment]
Take Langzhong City, Sichuan Province, for example. "Healthy Langzhong" mentioned the nucleic acid testing arrangement from May 30 to 31 in an announcement released on May 28 this year, stating that "all townships (streets) will organize residents under their jurisdiction in an orderly manner to designated nucleic acid sampling points in accordance with the work plan, and test themselves at their own expense "
The "self-funded testing" here is controversial. According to a May 26 official response from the National Health Insurance Administration, "the cost of regularized nucleic acid testing is borne by local governments."
After that, on May 29, Health Langzhong issued a supplemental announcement, changing the original announcement's requirement for normalized nucleic acid testing to "voluntary testing in the spirit of willingness to do everything possible."
The above two documents were released on May 8, 2020 and June 8, 2020, respectively, and both mentioned that the cost of "due diligence" should be borne by the local government, and the cost of "willingness to do due diligence" should be borne by the enterprise, organization or individual. The The Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of New Crown Virus Nucleic Acid Testing also emphasizes that "governments at all levels should strengthen the co-ordination of funding".
Part of the June 8, 2020, "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of New Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Testing.
It is worth mentioning that, in order to guide and reduce the high cost of testing in an orderly manner, and to support the realization that "all tests should be done and all tests are willing to be done", the NHPA issued the "Notice of the Office of the National Healthcare Security Bureau on Cooperating with the Work Relating to the Further Enhancement of the New Coronavirus Testing Capacity" on June 19, 2020, which explicitly requires local governments to further enhance the new coronavirus testing capacity and to provide funding for the work. Notice on the work", clearly requiring localities to comprehensively consider factors such as the demand for new coronavirus prevention and control work and the ability of the local health insurance fund to pay, as well as to incorporate the new coronary pneumonia nucleic acid and antibody testing project and related consumables into the provincial health insurance diagnosis and treatment project catalog in accordance with procedures, and synchronize the process.
June 19, 2020, the contents of the notice issued by the National Health Insurance Bureau.
At this time, nucleic acid testing has also been included in the health insurance catalog in many regions.
May 6, 2020, Hubei Provincial Bureau of Medical Security issued a notice, May 6, 2020 onwards, the nucleic acid testing and antibody testing items in the new coronavirus are temporarily included in the health insurance catalog, and are paid for according to category B.
On May 14, 2020, Sichuan announced that the new coronavirus test will be included in the basic medical insurance payment scope of Sichuan Province, and will be managed under Category A diagnosis and treatment items. "That is to say, there is no individual upfront percentage, and payment is made directly in accordance with the basic medical insurance regulations of the coordinated area."
2020
May 15, 2020
Beijing issued a notice saying that the country and the city stipulate that "the cost of the new coronavirus nucleic acid test should be examined, and the cost of the new coronavirus nucleic acid test for the population should be borne by the medical insurance fund and the financial **** the same, and that the financial burden will be reimbursed in a graded manner."
May 2020 Beijing guarantees the new coronavirus nucleic acid test matters notice.
According to information posted on the official website of the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Medical Protection on July 21, 2020, Guangdong had already included the cost of CT examinations at fever clinics for people screened for new coronavirus pneumonia, as well as the cost of nucleic acid testing for people within the scope of "should be examined as much as possible" in the scope of the special medical protection.
Screenshot from the official website of the Guangdong Provincial Health Protection Bureau.
Since the epidemic, some regions have developed a "health insurance fund local finance" payment model. So, where this model is in place, what is the ratio of payments between the two?
Taking Liaocheng, Shandong as an example. 2021 January, Liaocheng, Shandong announced the provincial medical insurance settlement of the nucleic acid test, "residents 1531 times, nucleic acid test fee 116334.36 yuan, the amount of medical insurance payment of 69800.97 yuan, the amount of financial subsidies for 46533.39 yuan. " According to that payment situation to see the payment structure, in which the health insurance fund to bear 60%, the local subsidies to bear 40%.
And according to the Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, Medical Protection Bureau news, as of December 30, 2021, the annual **** settlement of nucleic acid testing object local participants 3,194,300 times, the total medical costs 124 million yuan, of which the health insurance payment amounted to 95,150,000 yuan, the payment ratio of 76.9%.
In addition, according to the information released by the Zhejiang Provincial Health Insurance Center on May 18, 2021, since the epidemic, the organization of the province's operators and designated medical institutions to settle the cost of the new crown treatment of nearly 80 million yuan, the cost of the new crown nucleic acid and antibody testing of nearly 700 million yuan, to ensure that the anti-epidemic health insurance fund settlements in place in a timely manner.
And with the National Health Insurance Bureau in May to emphasize the normalization of nucleic acid testing by the local payment since, many places to adjust the policy to "local payment". For example, Henan Province mentioned in its May 28 press conference that the costs required for normalized nucleic acid testing would be borne by governments at all levels.
In addition, according to the Shanghai Municipal Epidemic Prevention and Control Leading Group Office, the Shanghai Municipality since June 1, 2023, will be carried out by public health care institutions of nucleic acid single sample test price from 25 yuan down to 16 yuan, multi-sample mixed test price from 5 yuan per person down to 3.5 yuan, antigen test price from 15 yuan down to 6 yuan. Testing services at Shanghai's standing nucleic acid testing sites are free until June 30th.
On May 31, the listed company Daan Gene responded to investors on the investor interactive platform, "the company's nucleic acid test products are first payment after the goods," said the company for different customers have different ways of settlement.
Objectives
Balancing epidemic prevention and control and economic development, to become the least costly way to prevent epidemics
Why is nucleic acid testing so important? How to understand the logic with economic recovery?
On May 9, Shanghai Securities issued a research report that the normalization of nucleic acid antigen detection is in line with China's general policy of "dynamic zero", which can accurately cut off the chain of transmission at the early stage of virus transmission, minimize the economic cost of subsequent large-scale closure of the city, and help to speed up the resumption of the normal functioning of society.
On May 10, Anxin Securities said in a research report that the normalization of nucleic acid testing can effectively curb the early spread of the virus, to avoid the economic loss of the whole society due to the large-scale closure of the city sealing and control, taking into account the prevention and control of the epidemic and the economic development, or become the least costly way to prevent the epidemic.
On June 2, the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism announced that it would strengthen the whole chain of supervision of nucleic acid testing for the new coronavirus. The State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism announced on June 2 that it would strengthen the supervision of the whole chain of new coronavirus nucleic acid testing, which was mentioned as a key measure to implement the "Four Early Days" and realize the general strategy of "preventing importation from the outside and preventing rebound from the inside" as well as the general guideline of "dynamic clearing".
"According to the World Health Organization, by the end of 2021, the cumulative number of new coronary deaths worldwide will be about 15 million."
On May 16, 2023, Ma Xiaowei, director of the National Health Commission (NHC), published an article in QiuYi, saying that at this stage, adhering to the "dynamic clearing" is the anti-epidemic strategy with the lowest overall social cost, and the earlier the epidemic is brought under control, the smaller the impact on economic and social development will be. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, China is the first to control the epidemic, the first to resume production, the first to achieve economic growth from negative to positive. 2021 to maintain economic growth and epidemic prevention and control of global leadership, good epidemic prevention and control situation provides an important guarantee.
"We must be mindful of the 'greatness of the country', more big accounts, overall accounts, long-term accounts, found together, extinguished together, to control the epidemic at a faster speed and a smaller cost, firmly grasp the initiative." Ma Xiaowei said.
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