918,000 Medical Consumable Codes Released: Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Weigao Among Featured Companies

Medicine Net, December 11 News

 

　　918,000 Consumable Codes Involving Multiple Well-Known Medical Device Companies

 

Recently, the National Healthcare Security Administration issued the "Notice on Publicizing the Fourth Batch of Information in the Database of Classification and Codes for Medical Consumables Covered by Medical Insurance" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), publicizing information on medical consumables from the fourth batch (July 1, 2020–September 30, 2020). The public consultation period runs from December 7, 2020, to December 16, 2020.

 

According to a review by Saibailan Medical Devices, the fourth batch of consumable coding data comprises 6,060 entries, covering a total of 918,106 specifications and models. The companies involved include well-known domestic and international medical device manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, WEGO, Lepu Medical, MicroPort Medical, and Stryker.

 

Including the fourth batch, the National Healthcare Security Administration has currently published a total of 73,953 medical consumable codes, covering 19.995 million specifications and models.

 

On September 8, the National Healthcare Security Administration publicized the third batch of information for the database of classification and codes for medical consumables covered by medical insurance, comprising a total of 5,266 codes involving 752,607 specifications and models. The products included those from well-known domestic and international medical device companies such as Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott, Mindray Medical, Shandong Weigao, Shanghai MicroPort, and Nanwei Medical.

 

The second batch of medical consumable codes comprises 32,554 entries, covering 9,404,543 specifications and models; the first batch of medical consumable codes comprises 30,073 entries, covering 8,919,696 specifications and models.

 

According to the public notice, the coding system for medical consumables includes Level 1 classification (discipline, category), Level 2 classification (intended use, item), Level 3 classification (anatomical site, function, variety), generic name for medical insurance purposes, material composition, specifications (characteristics, parameters), and manufacturingEnterpriseInformation.

 

Prior to this, on June 27, 2019, the National Healthcare Security Administration issued the “Notice of the National Healthcare Security Administration on Printing and Distributing the Medical SecurityStandardNotice on Issuing the Guiding Opinions, which promulgates the coding rules and methods for four types of information services, including medical consumables covered by medical insurance. The coding system for medical insurance-covered consumables specifically comprises five components: the consumable identification code, classification code, generic name code, product feature code, and manufacturer code.

 

 

Recently, the National Healthcare Security Administration also issued the “Notice on Implementing the 15 Information Business Coding Standards for Medical Security,” requiring all localities to properly carry out medical insuranceDiseaseDiagnoses and Surgical Procedures, Medical Service Items,Drugsthe implementation of 15 medical security information business coding standards, including those for medical consumables, and explicitly proposes four work tasks to promote the implementation of these information business coding standards.

 

It is understood that data standardization is the foundation and prerequisite for building a medical insurance information platform that is “unified, efficient, compatible, convenient, and secure.” Advancing the standardization of medical security from a high starting point is not only an important component of implementing the national standardization strategy, but also a major task in deepening the reform of the medical security system, and a foundational project for achieving modernization of medical insurance governance.

 

By implementing coding standardization, it is possible to achieve data integration across medical insurance operations, facilitate data interoperability among various pooling regions, and ensure data connectivity between the national level and all provinces (autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government). This will ultimately establish a unified national standard and a shared data pool, thereby robustly enabling big data analytics and applications for medical insurance at the national level.

 

Currently, all provinces are in the implementation phase. According to China's medical insurance information, the coding system for medical consumables covered by medical insurance has been implemented and applied in Tianjin, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Guangdong.

 

Prior to the establishment of the current classification and coding system for medical consumables covered by medical insurance, China appeared to lack a unified national system of generic names, accurate systematic categorization, and coding standards for medical consumables.

 

“China Medical Insurance” magazine published an article titled “Research on the Classification and Coding Standards for Medical Consumables Covered by Medical Insurance,” which showed that, through a survey on the “Standardization of National Healthcare Security Information Services,” the usage of medical consumable codes across provinces and prefecture-level cities was investigated, collecting information from 32 provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, and autonomous regions, as well as 341 pooled cities.

 

It has been found that the application of coding rules for medical consumables covered by medical insurance is quite complex. Six provinces employ seven different coding standards for medical consumables, nine provinces use three to six different coding standards, and only four provinces have unified coding systems, although the coding standards adopted by these four provinces also differ from one another.