Beijing hospitals begin to offer online appointment service

Beijing Jishuitan Hospital and Beijing Cancer Hospital, where it has been extremely hard for patients to get an appointment number, recently launched an online registration service. Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said that to register for an appointment online, the hospital will charge only 3 yuan, which is the price limit set by departments in charge of pricing, and any other extra charges are forbidden.

At present, all the departments of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, except Department of Spine Surgery, Department of Sports Injury and Pediatric Orthopedic Department, have launched the online registration service. Patients could click the “online registration appointment” on the home page of Beijing Jishuitan Hospital’s website to make either a regular appointment or a special appointment with an expert two days ahead of the desired appointment time. Hospitals also promised that if a clinic will be closed, they will announce it two days ahead of time.

In addition to the same day registration service, personal appointment registration for the clinic, and the telephone appointment registration service, Beijing Cancer Hospital launched the online registration appointment service, and patients can now make online registration appointments for both first visits and subsequent visits.

According to Beijing Municipal Health Bureau’s requirements, starting from September 1, all the hospitals below grade two in Beijing, especially the grade-three hospitals, should establish a public notice system for making appointments over the telephone, set reasonable time limits for appointment registration, actively promote an appointment registration system for subsequent visits in different periods of time and an outpatient system for different levels, in order to establish convenient registration methods for patients and shorten the long lines to register an appointment or see a doctor.

Beijing Municipal Health Bureau also said that for an online registration, the hospitals should not charge more than 3 yuan, which is the price limit set by relevant departments, and any other extra charges are forbidden. The hospitals should make public its unified number and offer the service of free telephone appointment registration (patients should pay the telephone fees); the personal appointment registration for subsequent visits should be free of charge, and meanwhile, hospitals should improve their appointment registration procedures, carry out an appointment registration system according to different periods of time and encourage doctors to visit more patients to avoid the congestion caused by patients on their first and subsequent visits.

Interview

Beijing Jishuitan Hospital

The patient who fails to show up for his or her appointment will be put onto the blacklist

If patients are put onto the blacklist, online appointment registrations will no longer be available to them; the hospital will launch telephone appointment registrations at the beginning of next month.

By 2:00 pm of August 24, 42 patients have acquired a Beijing Jishuitan Hospital appointment registration number for August 25 through the Internet. Reporters learned that if a patient wants to cancel his or her appointment, he or she should do it ahead of time. Otherwise, the patient will be put onto the blacklist, and will not be able to make online registration appointments next time.