Recently, a scandal broke out that a doctor surnamed Li in Henan Province, China, received about 500,000 yuan (RMB) in drug kickbacks over a three-year period.
Kickbacks have been a “unspoken rule” in China’s medical profession, and it is getting worse. Recently, there was another scandal about a doctor surnamed Li in Henan Province, China, who received drug kickbacks of about 500,000 yuan (RMB) over a period of three years.
On December 14, China’s “Judicial Documents Website” showed that Li Junwang, deputy director of the medical oncology department at a county hospital in Henan Province, accepted bribes of up to 505,600 yuan from several pharmaceutical companies. Li was sentenced to 2 years in prison and 2 years probation.
According to the report, Li Junwang received kickbacks for various anti-tumor drugs at “explicit prices” between January 2016 and June 2020, involving more than 20 varieties of drugs, including chemotherapy drugs, nutritional drugs, Chinese herbal injections, antibiotics and so on, commonly used in oncology departments. The company’s main target is the anti-tumor drugs, which are the key objects of kickbacks received by Li Junwang. There are at least seven oncology drugs involved, and the kickback ratio is about 20%.
In the report, taking “Oxaliplatin for Injection” as an example, according to the results agreed between Li Junwang and the medical representative, for every “Oxaliplatin for Injection (0.1g)” prescribed by his hospital, “Director Li” could get a commission of 100 yuan. The “director” can take 100 yuan for each “oxaliplatin for injection (0.1g)” prescribed by his hospital. The medical insurance price of oxaliplatin in several provinces is around 580 yuan, according to this calculation, the kickbacks received by Li Junwang accounted for about 17% of the retail price of the drug.
Another drug “Capecitabine tablets” is even higher, Li each prescribed a box of 0.5G of “Capecitabine tablets” will be able to get 25 yuan – 45 yuan of the draw. Because of the many manufacturers of capecitabine tablets, product pricing also varies, with market retail prices ranging from 38 yuan – 89.52 yuan. From the amount of the draw for a rough calculation, the drug in the hands of Li Junwang over a, to be taken away about 50% of the rebate.
Not only that, he even the market price of 14 yuan of “injectable calcium folinic acid” also want to collect 2 yuan of rebates.
It is reported that the manufacturers of the above drugs are the leading domestic enterprises, including Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals, Chenxin Pharmaceuticals, Shuanglu Pharmaceuticals, Qilu Pharmaceuticals, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals and so on.
And many of the anti-tumor drugs involved in their cases have been included in the scope of local collection by some provinces and cities. The fourth batch of national collection will also be carried out in early 2021, and a large number of injectables have already been included in the scope. According to the report, there is huge room for price reduction for these varieties.
In addition, the report also pointed out that as early as July-September this year, there were “real-name report letters” in many tertiary hospitals, exposing the problem of kickbacks of some narcotic drugs and oncology drugs, which once aroused public opinion at that time. The “report letters” disclosed that the percentage of rebates for antineoplastic drugs was around 12%. The kickbacks received by the above-mentioned “Director Li” have exceeded the “industry average”.
Kickback scandals in China’s medical sector have repeatedly emerged
In February 2012, the party media CCTV reported that a patient in Jinan underwent stenting surgery for a heart attack and had seven stents put in, costing more than 100,000 yuan. Some experts pointed out that “stents put in more than 3 lose their clinical significance, and putting in 7 purely becomes selling stents.” In terms of heart disease treatment, bypass surgery is the best option. Doctors are happy to put in stents because “each stent doctor can get 10% to 15% rebate” and “for every imported stent put in a patient, the doctor can get at least 2,000 yuan”.
In May 2019, a microblogging user reported that “Yang Xiangjun, chief cardiovascular physician of the First Hospital, was reported by his doctoral student: a stent was installed indiscriminately, and a rebate of 10,000 yuan was installed.” On May 20, Surfing News reported the reporter’s interview on the incident with the title “Doctoral student reports mentor’s indiscriminate installation of stents to receive rebates: a rebate of 10,000 yuan was installed. The interview of the relevant events.
It can be seen that in just seven years, the doctor took a “kickback” of 2,000 yuan per stent to 10,000 yuan, much higher than the level of price increases, and also much higher than the growth rate of GDP. In other words, medical corruption is getting more and more aggressive.
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