Patient registration website warned over surcharges

A website, which provides online hospital registration for patients, has been issued a warning for its service surcharges, Shanghai Health Commission said on Thursday.

The commission also said that none of the city-level hospitals has signed patient registration agreement with the website, sh.guahao160.com.

The website has vowed to remove the surcharges, and the commission said it will ask government departments responsible for overseeing the matter to halt the website's business if it fails to comply.

Seven online patient registration services were summoned to a meeting on Thursday, during which the commission told them to play by the rules.

Hospitals and doctors are banned from overcharging patients through third-party patient registration services, and the price of registration shouldn’t exceed that on the official patient registration app run by the commission —  Shanghai Health Cloud.

The commission said a website found committing an offense for the first time will see its business suspended for four weeks, and repeated offenders could have their websites taken down by authorities. 

It also asked the websites to strictly implement the rule of restricting service to users who miss appointments three times within three months in order to crack down on scalpers, who rig the demand to sell registrations at higher prices.