Chinese hospitals see no big revenue loss despite medicine mark-ups ban: official

22 May 2015

No serious revenue drops have been seen after China banned hospitals from charging a mark-up on drugs as part of a health corruption reform, an official said Friday, reported the state news agency Xinhua.

Hospitals' profits from medicine sales have been affected but the loss is compensated for by higher charges for medical service and funding from local government, said Sun Zhigang, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, at a press conference.

The 15% mark-up on drugs sales has long been blamed for unreasonably high medical costs in China as the policy could encourage hospitals to prescribe more medicine than is necessary in order to generate revenue.

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