It is forbidden to sell medicines and then replenish prescriptions, and limit AI consultations-

Internet medical care will bid farewell to barbaric growth

　　Our reporter Wu Jiajia

　　In order to further regulate Internet diagnosis and treatment, promote the healthy development of Internet diagnosis and treatment services, and ensure medical quality and medical safety, the National Health Commission organized and drafted the "Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Regulations (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)" to solicit public opinions recently.

This is the first detailed document issued by relevant departments for Internet diagnosis and treatment since the "Administrative Measures for Internet Diagnosis and Treatment (Trial)" and other documents were issued in 2018.

Industry insiders believe that the draft provides a basis for the current supervision of Internet diagnosis and treatment, which will encourage Internet diagnosis and treatment services to focus more on the use of digital methods for disease diagnosis and treatment and health maintenance, and further promote the compliance, orderliness and sustainability of the Internet diagnosis and treatment industry. develop.

Clearly regulate the direction of operation

　　In recent years, my country's Internet medical services have developed rapidly.

Statistics show that as of the first half of this year, there have been more than 1,600 Internet hospitals across the country, and about 500 new ones have been added this year.

With the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, medical institutions have actively innovated medical service models. From the beginning, they provided services such as online platform registration and online viewing of reports, and now they are trying to open up "online consultation + follow-up renewal + medical insurance payment" and other links. Under the catalysis of policies, the construction of Internet hospitals has been continuously extended.

　　However, Internet diagnosis and treatment is still in the exploratory stage in my country.

Lu Qingjun, director of the Office of the National Center for Telemedicine and Internet Medicine, once pointed out that my country’s Internet medical industry policies are not implemented in place; some models have unreasonable service procedures, and diagnosis and treatment standards are not perfect; many institutions have inadequate doctor access supervision and process supervision, and online diagnosis and treatment. Insufficient training; the number of Internet hospitals is large, the scale is small, the construction period is short, and the quality of operation and management is not optimistic.

　　"The regulatory rules have raised the barriers to entry for the industry, or will allow Internet medical care to bid farewell to the past'barbaric growth' and enter a stage of standardized and high-quality development." WeDoctor Chairman Liao Jieyuan said that the draft for comments directly pointed to the current ills in the Internet diagnosis and treatment industry. , It clearly prohibits illegal behaviors such as selling drugs first and replenishing prescriptions, drug rebates, etc., and put forward a number of requirements for the Internet hospital information technology platform, which has increased the construction and operating costs of the platform.

In the future, only professional enterprises and large-scale platforms that have accumulated early technology, rich operating experience, and a complete compliance system can stand out from the competition.

　　Wang Shirui, founder and CEO of the Medical Federation, believes: "The draft for comments reveals the signal of tightening supervision, and also shows that the bottom line of medical safety cannot be broken." This regulatory rule covers the entire process and all aspects of the flow of Internet diagnosis and treatment information. Regulations, including specific regulatory content such as medical institutions, personnel, and businesses that provide Internet diagnosis and treatment services, adding clear re-examination vouchers, strengthening data transmission after docking with provincial-level regulatory platforms, mandatory annual inspections, etc., will be another important aspect of industry development The document, "The introduction of these detailed rules in the future will give practitioners and institutions in the Internet medical industry a basis to further promote the standardized development of the industry."

Consistent online and offline requirements

　　The draft for soliciting opinions released a clear policy signal-Internet diagnosis and treatment should be as homogeneous as the diagnosis and treatment services provided by physical institutions, so that Internet diagnosis and treatment should return to the fundamental positioning of medical services.

"The specific content of the document basically continues the principle of traceability throughout the entire process and the reverse of responsibility. The online and offline requirements are more clearly consistent. Many requirements are the basic requirements of offline medical institutions." Deputy Director, Health Industry Development Research Center, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Director Chen Qiulin believes that in the process of industry development, Internet platforms are required to follow the laws of medical development to prevent offline problems from becoming online, and medical institutions are also required to follow the laws of Internet development and reshape their operating systems.

　　In response to the “prohibition of problems such as reunification and supplementation” and “the personal income of medical and health personnel shall not be linked to the income of medicines and medical examinations,” Li Tiantian, founder and chairman of Dingxiangyuan, believes that the reunification It means the act of collecting statistics on doctors' medication information and providing them to pharmaceutical marketers for the purpose of issuing drug rebates.

Tonic is to buy the medicine first and then make up the prescription. The patient and the pharmacy decide which medicine to buy.

"The regulator introduced such a policy because it has noticed that online gold sales have occurred in practice. The document clearly prohibits these behaviors in order to avoid transferring the offline problems solved by the medical reform to the online. This will also affect the market. Some of the prescription outflows and DTP pharmacies pose challenges."

　　The industry generally believes that with the continuous improvement of regulatory policies, Internet diagnosis and treatment is no longer a place outside the law, and the traditional marketing model will be subverted, which will bring challenges to the business of third-party platforms.

　　Wang Hang, chairman of Yinchuan Internet + Healthcare Association and founder of Good Doctor Online, said that the draft is to emphasize the integrated online and offline quality control of the Internet medical industry, which will force Internet platforms to do a good job of their own quality control.

"The draft for comments proposes that doctors need to be authenticated by their real names before receiving medical treatments to ensure that they are treated by themselves. Other personnel, artificial intelligence software, etc. shall not fraudulently use or substitute for medical treatments by the doctors themselves. This is a question for some of the current market use of AI technology. The behavior of medical services is restricted to prevent various platforms from using non-practicing physicians and AI software as tools for receiving medical consultations and prescribing prescriptions."

"Internet + medical" is the trend

　　The classification of Internet hospitals and the definition of the scope of diagnosis and treatment proposed in the draft for comments have also opened up imagination for new formats of the Internet medical industry.

Industry analysts pointed out that standardized supervision has brought about the homogeneity of online and offline medical services, which is conducive to promoting Internet diagnosis and treatment services to win large-scale purchases of medical insurance. This will promote the development of the Internet medical industry in the direction of an integrated medical service system, and the market capacity is expected Expand further.

　　Liao Jieyuan also said that after the formal implementation of the regulatory rules, the establishment of uniform standards for Internet diagnosis and treatment services, the realization of data interconnection, data sharing and other functions promoted by it will be more conducive to the large-scale payment of medical insurance funds for Internet diagnosis and treatment activities.

Under the premise of unified and standardized Internet diagnosis and treatment services across the country, medical insurance departments can more conveniently incorporate Internet diagnosis and treatment activities that meet the requirements and standards into the scope of online medical insurance payment.

This will be a new benefit for the Internet hospital platforms that have included online medical insurance payment in various places.

In fact, whether to pay for medical insurance has become the "gold standard" for judging the gold content of Internet diagnosis and treatment services. The access of medical insurance as the largest single payer is obviously conducive to the further expansion of the online diagnosis and treatment service market.

　　All in all, "Internet + medical treatment" is the general trend. The series of policies issued before clearly show the country's encouragement and support for the Internet medical industry.

This consultation draft further clarifies the regulatory norms, and is in line with a series of policies that are beneficial to the development of the industry. It is the protection of the normative and healthy and sustainable development of the Internet medical industry and the support for new business formats.