OREANDA-NEWS. October 19, 2011. Lately, ICBC worked with the General Hospital of Chinese People's Liberation Army ("301 Hospital") and Peking Union Medical College Hospital ("Union Hospital") to offer medical financial services. Two new cards were launched for customers to enjoy more quality and highly efficient medical settlement services. One was the 301 Hospital "Medical One-Card" with the functions for prior appointment and settlement. The other was the Union Hospital Bank-Hospital Card for customers to make appointment by themselves, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

As related by an executive with ICBC, the Union Hospital Bank-Hospital Card is the first Bank-Hospital co-branded card issued in Beijing. The Card is a "magnetic stripe + chip" card to meet customers' financial and medical needs. Once having the Card, the patient can make prior appointment within one week via ICBC's self-service terminals, and use the card to go directly to respective departments in Union Hospital for medical consultation or treatment. Services offered by ICBC's self-service terminals include appointment registration/enquiry, printing and re-printing of appointment slips. Customer will receive a SMS sent from ICBC 95588 Customer Service Line in real-time after paying the fee for appointment through ICBC channels.

301 Hospital "Medical One-Card" is jointly launched by ICBC Beijing Branch and 301 Hospital for customers to enjoy medical and financial services. Customers having any ICBC card (debit card or credit card issued by ICBC branches in the city or other city) can make prior appointment within one week and pay the bills in real-time through ICBC's self-service terminals, Personal Internet Banking, 95588 Customer Service Line or at 301 Hospital. Customers go to see the doctor and use the bank card to pay the bills in real-time for medical treatment, tests and medicine.

Worthy of note is that, currently 301 Hospital "Medical One-Card" does not support medicare reimbursement. Those who have the need can use the original means to settle the bill for medical appointment and diagnosis. As for the Union Hospital Bank-Hospital Card, only no support on the reimbursement for appointment fees, however, once the patient take own ID card, social security card (customers with medicare insurance) and the Bank-Hospital card to activate the card at the Card Center of Union Hospital, medical fees can be reimbursed.
 
The bank-hospital cooperation this time is a response to Ministry of Health's "Check First, Settle Later". Large commercial banks and top multidisciplinary hospitals join hands to launch innovative, advanced medicare and settlement services in a move to address the medical difficulties of all patients. Concerned ICBC executive said, in the next step, ICBC will continue the joint efforts with the hospital to improve the system, develop new functions such as medicare reimbursement, and enrich the information stored in the chip. The aim is to achieve sharing of the medical information between different hospitals and bring more convenience to patients.