CHINA will allow patients to claim medical insurance for visits to private hospitals, its main administrative authority said, marking the latest move from the Central Government to ease pressure on the country’s over-burdened public health care system.

    “In order to satisfy everyone’s diverse health care needs, we are lowering the threshold for private health care providers,” the State Council, the Cabnet, said on its website late Thursday.

    Other planned measures include offering preferential tax treatment to private hospitals and streamlining the approval process to set up a hospital or clinic, it said.

    It will also aim to give equal treatment to medical staff regardless of whether they work in the public or private system and eliminate requirements on the number of beds per hospital.

    China announced a five-year roadmap in March outlining a plan to double the number of its general doctors by 2020, trim its public sector and improve technology as it seeks to fix a health care system plagued by snarling lines and poor rural services.

    (SD-Agencies)