China Expands Telemedicine Programs to Provinces | Blogs | Health Care Law Today

Telemedicine continues to attract international attention, with China on track to become one of the largest telemedicine markets in the world.

Just a year after the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHFPC) began promoting the development of a national telemedicine network in China, multiple telemedicine pilots are already being implemented at the provincial level. This will strengthen the foundation at local levels in China for the expansion of telemedicine opportunities for U.S. health care businesses.

According to a recent report from the Sichuan Provincial Government, Sichuan is the first to release provincial-level Guidance on Family Telemedicine Pilot Programs. The Guidance states that before medical institutions and medical practitioners can offer family-focused telemedicine services, they must obtain a corresponding “Certificate Authority” (CA) certificate, which will be issued by the Sichuan Family Telemedicine Center to qualified medical institutions and by qualified medical institutions to their registered practitioners.

Medical institutions providing family telemedicine services must:

Be a tier-2, grade 1 medical institution or above;
Have relevant departments corresponding to the telemedicine practice areas, as well as relevant qualified personnel, technology, equipment and facilities.

Medical practitioners providing family telemedicine services must:

Register at a tier-2, grade 1 medical institution or above
Must have practiced for at least three years; and
Must pass the required training and examination at the Sichuan Family Telemedicine Center.

Moreover, the Guidance requires that patients receiving family telemedicine services register using their real names.

The Sichuan University Huaxi Hospital and the Provincial People’s Hospital will be the first two Sichuan hospitals to launch telemedicine pilots. Per the Provincial Government announcement, by the end of 2015, each of the 21 cities in Sichuan Province will have one hospital participating in the telemedicine pilot program. In 2016, Sichuan Province will expand the telemedicine pilot program to build a 4-tier telemedicine system (i.e., a program with pilots at the province, city, county, and village levels).

In addition to Sichuan, Hunan Province is also spearheading a telemedicine pilot program. In Hunan, the Provincial Second People’s Hospital has been providing telemedicine services since October 2015. Currently, the telemedicine services provided by the Hunan Provincial Second People’s Hospital are offered for free, but are primarily limited to psychiatry, psychology and family medicine areas. Hunan Province is promoting the use of electronic prescriptions and electronic medical records. However, telemedicine-prescribed medicines are not reimbursable in the currently effective China medical insurance system in Hunan province.

For more information on U.S. and China telemedicine arrangements, including publications, presentations and other materials, visit Foley’s Telemedicine Practice.

This blog is made available by Foley & Lardner LLP (“Foley” or “the Firm”) for informational purposes only. It is not meant to convey the Firm’s legal position on behalf of any client, nor is it intended to convey specific legal advice. Any opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Foley & Lardner LLP, its partners, or its clients. Accordingly, do not act upon this information without seeking counsel from a licensed attorney. This blog is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. Communicating with Foley through this website by email, blog post, or otherwise, does not create an attorney-client relationship for any legal matter. Therefore, any communication or material you transmit to Foley through this blog, whether by email, blog post or any other manner, will not be treated as confidential or proprietary. The information on this blog is published “AS IS” and is not guaranteed to be complete, accurate, and or up-to-date. Foley makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the operation or content of the site. Foley expressly disclaims all other guarantees, warranties, conditions and representations of any kind, either express or implied, whether arising under any statute, law, commercial use or otherwise, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. In no event shall Foley or any of its partners, officers, employees, agents or affiliates be liable, directly or indirectly, under any theory of law (contract, tort, negligence or otherwise), to you or anyone else, for any claims, losses or damages, direct, indirect special, incidental, punitive or consequential, resulting from or occasioned by the creation, use of or reliance on this site (including information and other content) or any third party websites or the information, resources or material accessed through any such websites. In some jurisdictions, the contents of this blog may be considered Attorney Advertising. If applicable, please note that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Photographs are for dramatization purposes only and may include models. Likenesses do not necessarily imply current client, partnership or employee status.