Many patients find that the drugs prescribed by the hospital, those used to make hanging bottles and injections, the doctor prescribes medical orders, and the nurse dispenses the medicine, often only a little bit, or half, and the remaining half is "missing", but the fee is charged as a whole piece.
This raises 3 questions:
1. The hospital only used half or a little bit of the injections I received, why did I charge for the whole one?
2. Where does the unused medicine go? Is it used for other patients? Is it considered the "income generation" of the hospital?
3. If the medicine is relatively expensive and a patient can't use it up, can a group of patients "group buy" and share the cost?
Therapeutic products such as injections and powders in medicine are important inventions and have become "sharp weapons" for clinical treatment of a large number of emergency, severe, difficult and common diseases. For example, intramuscular injection, hanging bottles, etc., have become important adjuvant treatments, which have quick effects and timely relief of symptoms.
However, there are certain specifications for the production of injections and powders, which are mostly expressed in milligrams, milliliters or percentages in clinical practice. The patient's medication is calculated according to weight, age, body surface area, etc., and there are often fractions, and more often it is an injection, which is only half used. This situation is common in the outpatient and inpatient departments, every day.
1. Since the medicine is not used up, why does the hospital charge the whole bill?
Because this medicine is intended for the patient, after it is opened, it will be contaminated by contact with the air, and unless it is used for a short time, there is a risk of deterioration and must be discarded.
2. Will the unused injections be used by other patients? Is the hospital "generating income" and selling more than one drug?
It is clinically common for a patient to give another patient an unused medicine, which is more common in two situations:
1. This drug is a shortage of drugs, which is not easy to come by, the inventory is very small, and it will be used by several patients at the same time in a short time after unsealing, such as cedilan, which is used in cardiology and other departments.
2. In order not to waste injections, it can be divided into several portions to dispense medicines and treat multiple patients at the same time.
In both cases, when the doctor prescribes a medical order, he will specifically ask the patient for advice and obtain consent before implementing it.
3. If a certain medicine is very valuable, a single patient cannot use it up, and it cannot be kept after unsealing, can it be "group purchased" to benefit more patients?
To be clear, this is not going to work. There was a lesson in the past: around 2007, an imported drug for the treatment of common eye diseases had a good effect, but the price was as high as more than 20,000 yuan per vial, and patients could only use one-thirtieth of the dose each time, and the rest could only be wasted.
Some patients asked, can they "buy in groups" and share the cost, and the treatment efficiency has also been improved? The hospital agreed, so in a short period of time, both doctors and patients were happy, not to mention that the condition was under control, and the cost was only one-thirtieth of the original.
However, due to the different conditions of the patients, some were cured, some were not, and some were not cured, and some had opinions and complained to the hospital and the manufacturer. In order to exonerate itself, the manufacturer of the imported drug determined that the hospital was using "counterfeit drugs", because the "group purchase" behavior could not be charged according to the normal process and provide financial documents. All of a sudden, the hospital was pushed to a disadvantage, and the follow-up treatment was heavier.
Since then, the behavior of "group buying" and "pooling" is strictly prohibited in the medical system, and the hospital has put the standard and safety of patients' medication in the first place.
Therefore, a large number of medicines for the treatment of diseases in the hospital are "specialized, dedicated, and exclusive", and there are doctor's orders, drug lists, and bar codes in the medicines.
The reason is very simple: the medicine is not leftovers, you can leave a meal to eat, there is a risk of contamination, if something goes wrong, the hospital will be very troublesome, and the remaining injections, powders, and prescriptions cannot be recycled, because the accounts cannot be settled, and there will be accountability during the inventory. The most standardized way to dispose of it is "waste disposal".