Not long after school started, the kid began getting sick every few days again. The medicine from the district hospital near home didn't help, so we ended up back at Shanghai Children's Medical Center. There's no avoiding it β for pediatric care in Pudong, it's the one you can't skip.
Once there, I realized a few small problems we'd been putting off could be seen in the same visit. I registered for several departments β and saw that the specialty-clinic fee in the regular outpatient department is already 128 yuan. Not VIP/special-needs β the regular one.
But thinking about it, it's somehow acceptable.
Children's Medical Center is one of the best pediatric hospitals in the country. Outpatient volume is packed year-round, and queuing hours for registration is normal. People from all over the country squeeze in, and there are only so many slots. The baseline diagnostic fee set by medical insurance β 25 yuan for a standard outpatient visit at a top-tier hospital, 40 for an associate chief physician, 50 for a chief physician β is indeed far too low for a national top children's specialist hospital.
So what happens? The specialty clinics and expert outpatient fees get raised β 128 yuan. Parents willing to pay extra for the certainty of "getting it properly diagnosed" will naturally come. Ordinary folks like us, if we find it pricey, first try the district hospitals and community clinics, and only come for the 128-yuan slot if those don't work.
Minor illness goes to the community. What a district hospital can handle shouldn't crowd into a top-tier hospital. Genuinely difficult, complex, highly specialized cases are what Children's Medical Center is for. The several-fold gap in registration fees is itself a form of triage.