In three years' time, China's deprived patients will have government subsidies directly at hospital admission rather than applying for receipt reimbursement afterwards, health officials said Thursday.

Nie Chunlei, deputy director of the department of rural health management under the Ministry of Health, said in an online interview that hospitals would pay for part of the needy patients' medical bills and get reimbursed by government assistance programs or government-sponsored health insurance programs later.

This way, poor patients would not have to pay for all the medical expenses first, which is often beyond their means, Nie said.

The patients could show their certificates at hospital admission to prove they are entitled to government aid, said Mi Yongsheng, director of the social aid department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), in the same interview.

Hospitals would then check the patient's identity with the MCA and pay for the part of bill which attracts government aid, Mi said.

The ministries of health, civil affairs, finance, and human resources and social security issued a document in June, saying that China would gradually expand healthcare assistance over the next three years by helping more needy families in both rural and urban areas.

Assistance would be expanded to low-income people with serious illnesses and others based on local government standards, according to the document.

The scale and scope of the aid would vary in different parts of the country in accordance with local economic development, it said.

The government plans to pour nearly 8.1 billion yuan (1.2 billion U.S. dollars), a 60-percent increase year on year, into the assistance fund.

The money comes from the central government budget, local government finances and donations.

The Chinese government already provides healthcare assistance to urban and rural residents who live on their local minimum living standard and those who receive the "five guarantees" -- food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses -- provided by local governments to those without relatives or employment.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2009)