National Medical Insurance Administration: 69 pharmaceutical companies have dishonesty behavior

Recently, the Medical Price and Bidding and Purchasing Guidance Center of the National Medical Security Administration released the "Serious" and "Extremely Serious" Untrustworthy Evaluation Results of Price Recruitment Credit Evaluation", which publicly exposed the serious untrustworthy behavior of 5 enterprises, which aroused the concern of all walks of life
.
Recently, the responsible comrade of the center accepted an interview with reporters.

Reporter Interview Record

Q: Could you please introduce the progress of the construction of the medical price and the credit evaluation system for recruitment and procurement?

Answer: On August 28, 2020, the National Medical Security Administration issued the "Guiding Opinions on Establishing a Medical Price and Recruitment Credit Evaluation System", which requires the province as a unit and a centralized medical procurement agency as the main body to establish a comprehensive medical price and Recruitment credit evaluation system
.
Generally speaking, the system is progressing smoothly

As of January 2021, all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have all formulated specific policies for implementing the credit evaluation system, and published a list of untrustworthy items, credit evaluation operating specifications and discretionary benchmarks
.

On the whole, pharmaceutical companies are aware of the credit evaluation system, actively respond, and actively cooperate.
The vast majority of companies immediately submitted written commitments to the provincial centralized procurement agency
.
Currently, all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and the existing online pharmaceutical companies on the centralized procurement platform of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have submitted their commitments to keep their promises

Q: What specific results have been achieved through the establishment of a credit evaluation system? a

Answer: After the establishment of the credit evaluation system, centralized procurement agencies at all levels will earnestly implement it, and promptly give rating and disposal to untrustworthy enterprises
.
As of mid-September, 5 companies have been rated as "serious" untrustworthy by the relevant provinces due to the high amount of "rebates" or the impact of dishonesty, and related pharmaceutical products have been suspended from online purchases; 14 companies have given "rebates" and other untrustworthy According to the rules, it was classified as “moderate” dishonesty, and related pharmaceutical products were “brighted yellow”.

After being rated, the vast majority of untrustworthy companies are able to face up to and actively correct their own problems, and actively take measures such as price reductions to repair their credit.
Enterprises have begun to realize the harmfulness of improper marketing behaviors such as gold sales and gradually cut them off.
It has played an active role in creating an industry atmosphere where integrity and integrity are the priority
.

Q: Pharmaceutical companies report that the "rebates" made by individual employees, agency companies, and operating companies should not be borne by the manufacturing company for the consequences of dishonesty
.
How to treat this view?

Answer: Enterprises are the main body of drug price pricing and should actively maintain normal price order

The "Drug Administration Law" also stipulates that all pricing entities should set prices in accordance with the principles of fairness, reasonableness, honesty and credibility, and conformity to quality and price, provide drug users with reasonably priced drugs, and prohibit excessive profits, price monopoly, and price fraud
.
Accordingly, when participating in the centralized procurement of medicines, all pharmaceutical manufacturers have submitted their price-keeping commitments

Q: Pharmaceutical companies report that the "rebates" made by individual employees, agency companies, and operating companies should not be borne by the manufacturing company for the consequences of dishonesty
.
How to treat this view?

Answer: Enterprises are the main body of drug price pricing and should actively maintain normal price order

The focus of the price solicitation credit evaluation system is not only to hold accountability for "rebates", but also to rate and deal with the untrustworthy behavior of enterprises
.
No matter who gives the "rebate", the money used for the "rebate" will become part of the drug price

Q: After the implementation of credit evaluation work, more and more pharmaceutical companies have realized the harmfulness of "rebates" and other behaviors, and have taken active measures to correct their behaviors.
What are the precautions that need to be taken?

Answer: The purpose of establishing and implementing a credit evaluation system for price recruitment is to encourage companies to participate in market competition fairly and obtain legal benefits, especially to urge untrustworthy companies to correct illegal and non-compliant behaviors
.
The design of the system provides an opportunity for untrustworthy enterprises to repair their credit.
Enterprises can take measures such as terminating relevant untrustworthy behaviors, actively eliminating the room for falsely high product prices, and actively returning unreasonable prices
.
From a practical point of view, most companies have adopted methods such as lowering product prices to restore credit
.

Several issues need to be emphasized: One is to pay enough attention to the consequences of "general" or "moderate" dishonesty
.
This kind of punishment is continuous and cumulative.
If it is not corrected in time, the newly formed negative impacts will cause the rating results to accumulate and even upgrade
.
For example, 5 times of "general" dishonesty will progressively become "moderate" dishonesty, and 3 times of "medium" dishonesty will progressively become "serious" dishonesty
.
The second is to make good use of credit repair rules
.
For example, with regard to "rebates", the repair measures available to companies include returning improper earnings and reducing prices to eliminate room for false highs
.
Some companies believe that refunds can be used instead of price reductions.
In fact, the refund measures are to take back the improper income in the early period and do not repair the high price behavior in the later period; and the price reduction is to correct the false high price and avoid causing new harm
.
So on the issue of credit repair, refunds cannot replace price reductions
.

In addition, the credit evaluation system stipulates that untrustworthy enterprises should provide a written report to the provincial centralized medical procurement agency where the case occurred within 30 days from the effective date of the court's judgment or administrative penalty
.
If it is not reported, it will be given a "general" untrustworthy rating
.
Relevant companies are particularly reminded to report relevant situations in a timely manner to avoid accumulation of untrustworthy ratings
.

Q: Regarding the credit evaluation system, what work will be promoted in the next step?

Answer: The "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Medical Security System" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council has incorporated the establishment of a medical price and recruitment credit evaluation system into the important tasks of China's deepening of medical security in the new era
.
The "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Medical Security" issued by the General Office of the State Council specifically proposes to "fully implement the medical price and recruitment credit evaluation system
.
"

In the next step, in accordance with the unified deployment of the National Medical Insurance Administration, the Medical Price and Bidding and Purchasing Guidance Center will earnestly implement the system: First, regularly report clues to the source of untrustworthy behavior, and urge and guide localities to use them carefully
.
At the same time, research and explore ways to share information among multiple departments to enhance the effect of multiple interactions of information
.
The second is to publish "serious" and "particularly serious" untrustworthy enterprises in the column of "Price Recruitment Credit Evaluation" on the official website of the National Medical Insurance Administration within the prescribed period, strengthen social supervision and increase warnings
.
The third is to sum up the practical experience of various places in a timely manner, and timely revise the list of untrustworthy items, the operating specifications and discretionary benchmarks for credit evaluation
.