The photo shows an IVF baby born on April 1, 2023 at Shiyan People's Hospital in Hubei Province. Photo: VCG

A total of 10 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have included assisted reproductive medical services into the health insurance coverage, an important move to encourage fertility, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced on Friday.

The regions include Beijing, Shanghai, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Northwest China's Gansu Province and North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The health authorities are making efforts to allow more regions to cover the costs of assisted reproductive services in health insurance, said the administration.

Zhang Ke, head of the National Healthcare Security Administration, said in March that the healthcare authorities will continue to guide eligible regions to further improve the approval and medical insurance payment management for assisted reproductive medical services.

In June 2023, the administration issued guidelines for the approval of assisted reproductive medical services, integrating the various assisted reproductive projects into 12 categories. As of now, 24 provincial-level regions have followed the guidelines to integrate assisted reproductive projects, with 23 changing the pricing mechanism from market-regulated prices to government-guided prices, according to the healthcare authority.

After implementing government-guided pricing, fees have been reduced to varying degrees, with Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region seeing an average decrease of 20 percent, for example.

In East China's Jiangxi Province, taking the provincial hospitals in Nanchang as an example, the price of egg retrieval has been reduced from 1,500 yuan ($207) to 1,000 yuan, and the price of embryo transfer has been reduced from 1,600 yuan to 1,000 yuan.

Assisted reproductive technology has helped many families fulfill their dreams of having children, but the high cost has deterred some families. The cost of a cycle of assisted reproductive transplantation treatment is between 30,000 and 40,000 yuan, and more than half of women may need to undergo the treatment multiple times. With medical insurance coverage, the financial burden can be significantly reduced, said Yang Yihua, deputy director of the Guangxi Reproductive Medicine Research Center at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University.

Since November 1, 2023, Guangxi has included nine assisted reproductive medical services in healthcare insurance.

In the past six months, there has been a significant increase in the number of assisted reproductive treatments in Guangxi. The total outpatient volume in assisted reproductive institutions in the region reached 993,700 person-times, with a year-on-year growth of 14.74 percent, according to the authority.

In Shanghai, effective from June 1, expenses related to 12 assisted reproductive medical services including egg retrieval, sperm retrieval and artificial insemination will be included in healthcare coverage, according to a circular issued by the local authorities. The healthcare coverage has been extended to 17 out of the 20 medical institutions in Shanghai providing assisted reproductive medical services.

Global Times