Some Practical Problems and Solutions Caused by the Centralized Procurement System of Medical Consumables from the Perspectives of Economics

Abstract

The Centralized Procurement System of Medical Consumables leads to a cliff price reduction of a large number of high-value medical consumables and has long-term impacts on public hospitals that cannot be ignored. Both descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis methods were applied in this study to explore some practical problems caused by the CPSMC from the perspective of economics. The conclusions of this study are as follows: 1) China's per capita health expenditure, per capita healthcare expenditure, and basic medical insurance fund expenditure have been growing rapidly since 2010. It is a general trend to seek a more sustainable way of medical consumables procurement. 2) The percentage of medical materials income in the medical income of public hospitals is increasing year by year. The promotion of zero makeup for consumables and the Centralized Procurement System (CPS) may have negative impacts on the profitability of some public hospitals. 3) The Chinese doctors in public hospitals have been underpaid for a long time. Due to the superposition of the COVID-19 epidemic and the CPS, the salary of some doctors are also facing a significant decline in a short term. 4) Doctors cannot get reasonable income compensation in the long-term heavy medical work, which may lead to negative impacts such as the decline of work enthusiasm and the changes of medical types and medical processes. The conclusions of this paper will help decision-making departments and relevant groups to deepen the comprehensive understanding and judgment of the impacts of the CPS, improve the corresponding compensation mechanism and regulatory system, and promote a sustainable and healthy development of the CPS.