Major Hospitals Ban Unauthorized Appointment Add-ons Amid Crackdown on Scalping

On January 26, a video of a woman angrily confronting hospital appointment scalpers went viral online. The incident drew widespread public attention and prompted government intervention. In response, the government introduced a series of stringent policies to crack down on appointment scalping and began implementing institutional reforms aimed at eliminating the profiteering from appointment slots through various illicit means.

On February 18, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals explicitly stated that hospitals under the municipal government would establish a mobile appointment registration system to achieve centralized allocation and coordination of general outpatient appointments within hospital groups. The practice of doctors issuing manual additional appointment slips will be abolished, with hospitals uniformly managing the authority and quotas for additional appointments. All hospitals will strictly implement “real-name” registration, requiring patients to complete both registration and payment simultaneously when making an appointment, and establish a mechanism for the random release of canceled appointments. To curb ticket scalping, hospitals will strengthen surveillance and patrols in outpatient departments, registration halls, and surrounding areas; collaborate with public security authorities to gradually expand the use of second-generation ID card readers at the registration stage; and strictly regulate cooperation between hospitals and physicians with commercial online appointment platforms. A “zero-tolerance” policy will be enforced against internal hospital staff involved in ticket scalping, with systems established for reporting, supervising, and penalizing the illicit use of medical resources. In serious cases, the principal party and administrative leaders of the hospitals will be held accountable.

Meanwhile, Beijing Television and China Central Television (CCTV) exposed scalpers’ exploitation of mobile healthcare platforms to resell doctors’ additional appointment slots, shifting public attention from traditional hospital scalpers to mobile healthcare platforms.

Subsequently, an urgent notice from a Grade 3A hospital began circulating online: “To all department heads: In accordance with the directives of the Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, medical personnel are prohibited from engaging in any form of unauthorized cooperation with commercial appointment registration and other medical service platforms for profit. All department heads must ensure that this message is communicated to every medical staff member today. Any existing collaborations must be terminated immediately. Effective immediately, any violations of these superior directives will be strictly dealt with in accordance with relevant regulations, and departmental leaders will be held accountable.”

What impact will the introduction of these policies and regulations have on the mobile healthcare sector, which is currently undergoing rapid iteration and transformation? Will the existing policies be further deepened and expanded, thereby adversely affecting the overall development of mobile healthcare? We will analyze and interpret this issue from several perspectives.

I. Should the practice of privately adding patients to appointment lists be discontinued?The internet is a technological tool, and its application in the healthcare sector should be directed toward technological innovation, cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and value creation. Online platforms that facilitate private arrangements with physicians for additional appointment slots offer no technological advancements nor create new value; instead, they merely enable access for certain patients at exorbitant booking costs. “Internet Plus” has devolved into “Internet Plus Appointments,” with these platforms acting as online scalpers. The regulatory crackdown on such services represents an upgraded digital effort to combat appointment scalping and restore fairness to the allocation of specialist consultation resources. Industry stakeholders need not be overly concerned or skeptical about this development.

II. It is the physicians’ private practices that are being halted.From this perspective, regulatory authorities and hospitals may begin to place greater emphasis on collaborations between individual physicians and online platforms. While we do not rule out the possibility of medical institutions partnering with online appointment registration platforms, it is essential to adhere to several key principles: first, the hospital, rather than individual physicians, must serve as the primary entity in such collaborations; second, appointment registration is a public-welfare service and must not be used for profit-making purposes. Online platforms may continue to collaborate with hospitals to facilitate appointment registration, but they themselves must not derive profits from the allocation of appointment slots. This aspect of the service must remain purely altruistic—akin to a “Lei Feng” act of selfless contribution. How these platforms generate revenue through traffic monetization depends entirely on their own capabilities.

III. Currently, only the practice of privately adding appointment slots has been suspended.Based on the meeting minutes from the Hospital Authority and a notice issued by a certain Grade 3A hospital, it is currently clear that only the practice of adding extra appointment slots through platform partnerships is prohibited. It remains uncertain whether other services—such as health management, online consultations, follow-up management, and chronic disease management—will be suspended in the next phase. One point is clear: the primary objective of the government’s new policy is to rectify the chaotic market for specialist appointments, rather than to restrict or ban mobile healthcare. This is evidenced by the fact that the meeting details disclosed by regulatory authorities did not mention any prohibition on other business lines.

IV. Prevent the overextension of restrictions on medical institutions.Although the government is currently in the process of defining regulations for the private appointment-booking business, the aforementioned Grade A tertiary hospital’s guidelines on physician conduct state that “medical personnel are prohibited from privately cooperating in any form with commercial appointment-booking and other medical service platforms.” It remains unclear whether “any form” includes other activities conducted by physicians individually on certain apps. This is a signal worth monitoring. If hospital administrators, in an effort to avoid accountability from higher authorities and to settle the matter once and for all, explicitly prohibit all physicians from engaging in any private collaborations with any platforms—including online consultations, follow-up management, and health services—it would have a significant impact on mobile healthcare. Platforms primarily operating on a “doctor-patient” model (commonly referred to as C2C) would face considerable pressure as many collaborating physicians are forced to go offline. Therefore, as the situation evolves to this stage, it is essential to closely monitor the measures taken by medical institutions and urge them not to rush into a blanket ban on collaborations between physicians and platforms. Should such a trend emerge, industry stakeholders and media outlets should actively advocate and provide guidance.

In light of the national policies encouraging the development of the internet, the overarching trend toward mobile health is unstoppable. If medical institutions were to impose restrictive regulations that prohibit physicians from engaging in valuable internet-based services, they would only rigidify hospital management mechanisms and cause a regression in their health information technology capabilities. Physicians are willing to collaborate with internet platforms due to a variety of professional needs; therefore, why should hospitals not proactively develop and leverage their own internet platforms to address these diverse needs?

Therefore, as hospital administrators, while cracking down on the illicit resale of appointment slots, we should proactively strategize the development of our institutions’ internet platforms. By embracing digital transformation and addressing physicians’ needs, we can enable doctors to pilot new business models on our proprietary platforms, thereby creating value for both the hospital and patients. Like Yu the Great’s taming of the floods, guidance is more effective than mere blockade. This approach yields multiple benefits; why should medical institutions wait any longer?

Author: He Yi, CEO of Huiyi Online. Positioned as the “Tmall of Healthcare,” Huiyi Online is a leading third-party telemedicine service platform in China. Email:hardman121@163.com。