![\"health](\"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/health-insurance-expats-china.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
One of the most important things you need to consider before moving to China to live<\/a> is whether you need to take out health insurance or not, and what type of policy to choose.<\/p>\n This article is intended to help you understand what you will find in China, and to provide the information necessary for you to be able to decide whether to take out a health insurance policy and how to choose it.<\/p>\n To do so, we are going to cover the following topics (you can click on the index below to skip directly to the section that you are most interested in).<\/p>\n \n<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are looking for information on health insurance for short stays or for tourism, while this article may be useful to you, I recommend that you check out this other article<\/a>.<\/p>\n In China, despite the existence of a public health care system, it is not at all similar to the one that exists in Europe (and other countries), where free and universal health care exists. The Chinese public health care system is not universal and is free to an even lesser extent.<\/p>\n In China, primary medical attention and public hospitals are run by the government and benefit from a certain amount of funding. This makes being admitted and visiting a doctor relatively cheap (between 1 and 5 Yuan). Nonetheless, treatments and drugs are paid in full and are quite expensive (often more expensive than private hospitals in the West).<\/p>\n One of the particularities of Chinese public hospitals is that their financing depends greatly on the sale of drugs, which makes it so that their prices tend to be much higher than in other countries (most of all for drugs produced abroad). This mainly happens because hospitals have a monopoly on the large majority of drugs. <\/p>\n That means that pharmacies in China tend to have a very limited selection of drugs (normally traditional medicine), and the only way to obtain certain drugs is with a doctor’s prescription, which is only valid in the hospital in which it has been obtained.<\/p>\n Another aspect that must be taken into consideration is the large number of health care professionals in China who lack professionalism (or better said, who are unscrupulous) and act on purely financial interests. It is very common for doctors to prescribe you the most expensive treatment<\/a> as well as unnecessary extras that they consider harmless.<\/p>\n A clear example of this is their love of prescribing intravenous medicine, taking x-rays, and adding traditional medicine ingredients<\/a> to prescriptions. In fact, it is a widespread practice that before an operation, you give extra money to a doctor so that they can “take extra care.” <\/p>\n In addition, nurses tend to not care for patients unless you pay them, which makes it very common for you to see the family members of sick people pushing around beds or wheelchairs in the hospital.<\/p>\n In addition to public medical assistance, there are numerous private hospitals and clinics which are both national and international. Despite the fact that numerous centers do not charge for consultations, treatments and drugs tend to have exorbitant prices.<\/p>\n As I mentioned in the previous section, medical attention in China is not free, and in many cases, can be more expensive than that of private hospitals in the West. Therefore, if you don’t have adequate health insurance, you can go bankrupt if you suffer from a minor illness or an accident. To get an idea, minor surgery can cost up to multiple tens of thousands of Yuan.<\/p>\n In addition, you have to remember that in China, they are not going to attend to you if you don’t pay the bill up front (often in cash) or in the case of certain international hospitals, before you demonstrate that you have health insurance that will cover the treatment.<\/p>\n In China, health care is a business. If you have an accident and you don’t have money or health insurance, as soon as they find out, they are going to kick you out of the hospital.<\/p>\n In China, it can be said that there are three types of hospitals: public hospitals, private hospitals, and international hospitals.<\/p>\n Public hospitals (except for rare exceptions) are far from meeting Western standards, are normally packed with people, the attention is poor, the facilities and hygiene in many cases leave a lot wanting, and their privacy is quite rare. In addition, you have to remember that staff will not speak a single word of English (some doctors might be able to say four or five phrases). Private hospitals for both traditional and Western medicine operate in a manner similar to public ones. The only differences are that there are not as many people, the staff is much friendlier, the facilities are better, and at times, staff may even speak English. Obviously, all of this has a price.<\/p>\nClick here if you want to send a request for a
free quotation to the broker we recommend at the moment<\/a><\/div>\n\nHealth Insurance for Expats in China – Index<\/h3>\n
\n
Medical attention in China<\/h2>\n
Why do I need health insurance in China?<\/h2>\n
Hospitals in China<\/h2>\n
Public hospitals<\/h3>\n
\nThe operation of public hospitals is a bit chaotic:<\/p>\n\n
Private hospitals<\/h3>\n
International hospitals<\/h3>\n