The people generally feel that it is difficult and expensive to see a doctor has become a major problem in life. On the other hand, although hospitals receive a large number of patients every day, the profits on the financial statements are not very large, and even some hospitals need to rely on borrowing to maintain operations. This article will delve into the root causes of this phenomenon and illustrate the existential dilemmas faced by the healthcare industry.
First, we need to understand what constitutes a hospital's operating costs. In addition to rigid expenses such as equipment purchase, maintenance, depreciation, and personnel salaries, there are also costs directly related to the diagnosis and treatment process, such as drug procurement, medical material consumption, and hospitalization costs. These costs are not only high, but also in the process of medical reform, the state's regulation of drug prices and the implementation of the medical insurance system have severely squeezed the profit margins of hospitals.
At the same time, the revenue structure of hospitals is changing. In the past, the income of hospitals mainly came from drug sales, but with the country's suppression of drug prices and the increasing efforts to crack down on "medicine for medicine", the proportion of drug revenue in the total income of hospitals has gradually decreased. Some hospitals have even experienced the phenomenon of "selling drugs and losing money", which further weakens the profitability of hospitals.
Let's take a tertiary hospital as an example. The hospital's annual outpatient volume is about 200,000 people, but the per capita outpatient cost is only 300 yuan, which means that the hospital's outpatient income is only 6 million yuan. In the total revenue of the hospital, the proportion of drug sales has fallen from 70% in the past to 50% now, which means that the hospital's drug revenue is only 3 million yuan per year. Even at a gross margin of 50%, this part of the revenue can only bring 1.5 million yuan of gross profit to the hospital.
Therefore, despite the high daily traffic of the hospital, the profitability of the hospital has not improved significantly due to the dual effect of changes in the revenue structure and cost pressure. To stay afloat, many hospitals have had to rely on borrowing or other means to bridge funding gaps. This explains why the profits on the financial statements of hospitals are not high, and some hospitals even rely on borrowing money to survive.
To sum up, the phenomenon of expensive medical treatment and low hospital profits is rooted in the operational characteristics of the medical industry and changes in the external environment. In order to improve this phenomenon, solutions need to be sought from multiple perspectives, including policy, the medical industry, and the hospitals themselves. For example, the government can increase financial investment in the medical industry, increase medical insurance coverage and reimbursement ratio; The medical industry can promote the standardization and standardization of medical services and reduce unnecessary costs; Hospitals themselves can also improve efficiency and reduce costs by improving the level of medical technology and optimizing the diagnosis and treatment process. Only in this way can the problem of expensive medical treatment be truly solved, and at the same time, the sustainable profitability of the hospital can be obtained.