China will improve its medical insurance policies to boost the development of primary healthcare services in the country, according to the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA).
Addressing a news conference on 10 April 2026, NHSA Deputy Director Medical Services Department Ms Xu Na said that a guideline jointly issued in March this year by NHSA, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Health Commission laid out comprehensive support measures to strengthen grassroots healthcare and deliver quality, convenient services to the public. These include the following five guiding principles.
1. More effective guarantee for the income of primary healthcare funds and to optimise the regional total budget management of medical insurance funds.
2. To provide stronger guarantees for patients' access to primary healthcare.
3. Promote more vigorously payment reforms suitable for the characteristics of primary care.
4. More effectively guarantee the medication needs of the public at the grassroots level.
5. Further enhance the convenience of primary-level medical insurance services.
These comprehensive support measures also include adjusting outpatient reimbursement rates at the grassroots level, promoting payment reforms tailored to primary care services, ensuring drug supplies, and deploying intelligent tools to enhance public convenience. Specifically, the guidelines propose that the basic medical insurance reimbursement rate for outpatient services at primary medical institutions shall be not less than 50%.
The national centralised drug procurement programme will also be leveraged to secure stocks of common and chronic medications at primary care facilities. Authorities will also support these institutions in equipping facial recognition devices to enable faster payment and insurance settlement.
Ms Xu said that the administration will select about 15 pilot regions to explore best practices and generate replicable experiences that can subsequently be promoted nationwide.
National Health Commission Director of Operation Evaluation Division Mr Hu Tongyu said, “Primary healthcare services are the first line of defence in safeguarding public health. As of 2025, the number of primary healthcare institutions nationwide reached 1.055m, including 34,000 township health centres, 560,000 village clinics, 10,300 community health service centres, and 27,300 community health service stations, basically achieving full coverage of primary healthcare services in both urban and rural areas.
Currently, there are over 5.25m healthcare personnel in primary healthcare institutions nationwide, and till date 2,199 counties (cities, districts) nationwide have carried out the construction of integrated county-level medical consortia, basically covering all counties and county-level cities, as well as one-third of urban areas.
Mr Hu said, “By the end of 2025, approximately 40,000 township health centres and community health service centres nationwide had reached basic or recommended service capacity standards, accounting for over 90% coverage.
In 2025, the number of outpatient visits to primary healthcare institutions nationwide reached 5.56bn, accounting for 52.6% of all outpatient visits.