China Issues Guidelines to Improve Elderly Care Service Pricing

People's Daily reported that China's National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the National Health Commission jointly issued guidelines to refine elderly care service pricing mechanisms and expand inclusive care. The policy aims to improve a tiered, accessible elderly care service system covering urban and rural areas while fostering development across elderly care undertakings and industries. The guidance establishes specific scopes for institutions, improves tiered price management methods, and standardizes pricing and charging conduct to leverage price policy in guiding quality, inclusive service provision. It explicitly outlines designated scopes for inclusive support institutions, encompassing eligible publicly built and run, publicly built and privately run, socially operated, and public medical institution elderly facilities. To encourage inclusive services across diverse facilities, basic safety-net institutions are guided to open empty beds to the public. Fully market-oriented elderly care facilities are also encouraged to offer inclusive options with local policy support, alongside newly established institutions set up by central and local state-owned enterprises. For community and home-based services, which constitute the primary elderly care format, the policy introduces systematic pricing arrangements to address previous ambiguities surrounding charging standards, service items, and payment rates.

For inclusive services delivered by basic safety-net institutions and inclusive support institutions, authorities will set government guidance prices or reference charge ranges following principles of cost compensation and reasonable profit.