Kathmandu. China will soon introduce a whitelist of medical products that can be purchased from retail pharmacies using individual healthcare insurance accounts. The move will regulate employees’ use of basic medical insurance personal accounts in a fair, sensible, flexible and thoughtful manner.
The proposed whitelist would also prevent the inclusion of unnecessary expenses that fall outside the scope of basic medical coverage. China’s information document for the proposed whitelist was jointly released by the National Health Service Security Administration and the Ministry of Finance in May 2026. It mandates state-level health care security administrations to develop their own whitelists by the end of September of this year.
The proposed whitelist would include medical products that could be purchased from retail pharmacies using individual healthcare insurance accounts. This will help curb the illegal use of such funds to purchase cosmetics, health supplements and miscellaneous items.
The whitelist may include medications, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, blood glucose tests, and medical equipment that aid in rehabilitation, as well as medical consumables such as masks, plasters, and pregnancy test strips.
China’s basic medical insurance program for employees covers about 389 million people across the country. Which represents about 30 percent of the total population.
The program includes individual healthcare accounts. It can be used to buy medicines from designated pharmacies and cover a portion of outpatient and hospitalization expenses. However, the authorities have found that the money in these personal accounts has been used to purchase non-medical items.
In a recent incident, retail pharmacies in Hunan and Henan provinces were found to be fraudulently recording payments for cosmetics, health supplements and daily necessities in the form of insurance-covered drugs.
The whitelist will be a dynamic document and will be adjusted as needed based on public demand and advances in medical technology. The notice clarifies that some products that are currently excluded may be added in the future if their medical functionality is primary and their pricing is reasonable. –Agency
