How much is the chronic disease subsidy per year?

There is no nationally unified fixed standard, ranging from two to three hundred per year to as high as hundreds of thousands. The range of differences is particularly large. The core depends on three factors: the policy of the insured area, the classification of chronic diseases, and the type of medical insurance insured.

In the past two years, I helped the elderly in my family get the chronic disease diagnosis of hypertension. The urban and rural residents' medical insurance in Weifang, Shandong Province, was approved for an annual quota of 1,000 yuan, a reimbursement ratio of 60%, and a minimum payment of 100 yuan. The nifedipine and irbesartan that the elderly usually take are drugs in the catalog. After a year, the drug cost out of pocket is only more than 200, which is basically the same as the daily medication covered by the medical insurance.

If you suffer from serious chronic diseases such as malignant tumors and uremia dialysis, the quota will be much higher. When I was working as a nurse in the hospital, I met a retired employee in Shenyang, Liaoning. He had colon cancer and needed long-term targeted drugs. His annual quota for chronic diseases was 120,000, with a reimbursement rate of 85%. Last year, he was reimbursed for more than 90,000 for targeted drugs, and he only paid a little over 10,000. Without this subsidy, he said he would not be able to afford the medicine.

Of course, not everyone can enjoy adequate protection. When I was doing medical insurance promotion in the community, I met a young man with Crohn's disease. His disease was only considered a Category II chronic disease locally, and his annual quota was only 3,000 yuan. However, he needed more than 2,000 yuan for biologics every month, which was not enough to cover the gap between his teeth. Many people also complain that the application threshold is too high. For example, some places require chronic diseases to meet specific complication standards before they can apply. Common people with high blood pressure and diabetes are not even eligible to apply. There are many people who can’t get through after traveling three or four times.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand that the quotas vary so much from place to place. Chronic disease subsidies are like the exclusive "drug purchase treasury" opened by medical insurance for people who have been taking medicine for a long time. The money comes from the local medical insurance pool. Coordinating areas with rich families naturally give higher amounts and reimburse ratios. Districts and counties with poor families have limited money to squeeze out, so the limits are naturally lower.

By the way, I would like to remind everyone, don’t apply for the chronic disease subsidy and think that you can reimburse any medicine you buy. You have to go to a designated medical institution to prescribe medicines in the local chronic disease catalogue. Previously, a neighbor wanted to buy imported hypoglycemic drugs online, but they were not in the local catalogue, and they were not reimbursed for a penny. Later, they switched to domestic drugs with the same ingredients prescribed by a community hospital, and they were able to use the chronic disease quota every time. In a year, they saved a little 2,000.