Temporary insurance system outage
The Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau apologized to the public yesterday for the temporary collapse of local hospitals' medical insurance system.
According to a statement from the bureau, the system crashed at 10:22am yesterday, affecting payments at the city's hospitals. Workers rushed to repair the system, which became operational again at about 2:10pm.
During the outage, residents could pay their medical fees only by cash, bank card or third-party payment services. This led to long queues and frustrated patients at many local hospitals.
The bureau is offering reimbursements for these payments and promised to improve the system.
Patients can apply for reimbursement at city or district-level medical insurance centers, as well as centers in their neighborhoods. Applicants should bring their social security cards, medical fee invoices, their medical records and their UnionPay bank cards.
The city's medical insurance hotline said residents can ask for a refund from hospital within six months, and then pay their fees again with their social security cards.