About

About China Medical Guide

What this site is

An independent, English-language guide to how the Chinese healthcare system works in practice — the administrative side of it, which is where foreign patients and visitors lose the most time and money.

It exists because the information gap is real. The medicine in Chinese public hospitals is not the problem. Finding the right counter, understanding what registration means, paying without a Chinese bank account, and explaining your symptoms to someone who does not speak English — that is the problem.

Who writes it

My name is Louis. I live in China, and I write and maintain this site myself — there is no team, no agency and no sponsor behind it.

I am not a doctor, a nurse or a hospital employee, and I hold no medical qualification of any kind. Nothing on this site is clinical advice, and I am not qualified to give any. Where a question is genuinely medical, the honest answer is always the same: ask a clinician who has examined you.

One more piece of context, because it explains where a good deal of this comes from: I grew up in a family of doctors. My father, my older brother and my sister-in-law all trained and practised in medicine. Some have since retired, and not all of them worked at Grade 3A hospitals. Growing up around that gave me a long, second-hand view of how Chinese hospitals actually run — and it is part of why reading a bill, or knowing which question to ask at a counter, does not intimidate me.

I want to be explicit about the limit of that: none of them writes, reviews or checks anything on this site, and none of them is involved with it in any way. They are family, not contributors and not reviewers. This site has no medical reviewer at all. That is a real limitation, and it is precisely why I do not write about diagnosis, treatment, or which hospital is better than which.

What I do have is experience from the patient's side of the counter. I have accompanied a family member through diagnosis and treatment at a Grade 3A (三甲) public hospital in China — the registration desk, the cashier window, the imaging appointments, the test results, the discharge paperwork. I have also helped other people work out what a hospital visit in China actually involves, and I have spent enough time in that system to see where a foreign visitor gets stuck.

That experience is also what this site is built on: knowing which document to bring, which queue to stand in, what a line on the bill refers to, and who to ask when nobody at the counter speaks English. Those are the things that decide whether a hospital visit takes two hours or two days.

I have a working understanding of what treatment in China tends to cost, and of why no single number can ever be correct. Prices are set province by province and vary by hospital grade and by individual item. That is why the cost page on this site does not quote a price — it shows you where the official prices are published and how to ask for them.

I started this site because the information gap is the expensive part. The standard of care in Chinese public hospitals is not what puts foreign patients off. Not knowing which counter to go to is.

If I do not know something, I say so, or I leave it out. I would rather this site be short and correct than long and approximately right.

How the content is researched

Every process described here is written to be verified, not assumed. The rules I hold myself to:

• Process over opinion. I describe how things work. I do not rank hospitals, recommend doctors or comment on quality of care.
• No medical advice. I do not diagnose, do not interpret symptoms, and do not suggest treatments.
• Sources over memory. Anything time-sensitive — visa rules, hospital procedures, payment methods — is traced to an official source or to direct confirmation from the hospital. If a claim cannot be sourced, it gets removed rather than softened.
• Dated, and reviewed. Every page carries the date it was last reviewed, because Chinese hospital procedures change.
• Corrections are published. If you find an error, report it and I will fix it — not quietly delete it.

Medical disclaimer

China Medical Guide does not provide medical advice, medical services or medical care.

The content on this site is general information about healthcare administration. It is not a diagnosis, not a treatment recommendation, not a second opinion, and not a substitute for consultation with a qualified clinician who has examined you.

Nothing on this site should be used to delay, avoid or replace seeking professional medical attention. If you have a medical concern, see a doctor. If it is urgent, go to the nearest hospital emergency department (急诊) or call 120.

This site does not endorse, and is not affiliated with, any hospital, clinic, doctor, pharmacy, insurer or medical provider mentioned on it. No payment is accepted in exchange for coverage or placement of any kind, and there is nothing here to buy.

Descriptions of procedures, fees, opening processes and regulations may become out of date and differ between cities and individual hospitals. Always confirm details directly with the hospital or the relevant authority before relying on them.

Privacy

This site does not collect health information. There is no account system, no appointment form, no enquiry form, no comment field and no newsletter. This site does not ask for your name, your passport details, your symptoms, your medical records or your contact details, and there is nowhere to store them if you sent them.

Analytics. Aggregate, anonymous visitor statistics may be used — which pages are read, roughly which country visitors come from. These contain no medical information and are not linked to any individual.

Links and third parties. Where this site links to another website or to a translation tool, that service has its own privacy policy and its own data practices, which this site does not control. If you paste medical text into a translation tool, that text leaves your device — consider whether you are comfortable with that before you do it.

What this site cannot do. Because no personal data is collected, it is not possible to retrieve or delete data about you, and no medical records or test results can be provided. Those requests must go to the hospital that treated you.

Corrections and contact

If something here is wrong, out of date, or missing, email [email protected]. Please include the page and, if you have it, the source that contradicts it. Corrections with a source get priority.

Last reviewed 2026-09-14.