Clinics angered by fake patients

THE Social Insurance Bureau in south China's Shenzhen City has been criticized over an undercover operation to catch doctors and clinics that break social insurance regulations.

Eighteen clinics in the city have been punished and have lost their right to take money from social security accounts after they allowed fake "patients" - actually bureau staff - to use other people's insurance cards to pay for their medical care, China National Radio reported yesterday.

Bureau official Huang Xianfeng said the punishments meted out were justified.

But doctors at the clinics said the undercover operation to enforce the law was "totally improper."

The "patients" usually urged doctors to be as fast as they could be with their diagnosis, usually claiming unbearable pain, said Liu Guiqing with one community clinic that was punished by the bureau.

Liu added that many of the undercover officers had used insurance cards with photos that looked remarkably like themselves.

"Doctors are not police, we'd rather spend more time on treating patients than scrutinizing photos," said Shuai Feifei with the city's No. 2 People's Hospital which was also on the black list.

The doctors said the bureau's aim of stopping people stealing from other social security accounts was laudable, yet denying the hospitals the right to charge from the accounts as punishment was making it harder for real patients to see a doctor.

Shuai also said adding a password to the social security card, which had been advocated for years, would solve the problem.