Recently, Jiangsu Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau issued the "Measures for the Administration of Credit Scoring of Pharmaceutical (Medical Consumables) Sunshine Procurement (Trial) (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures").

Officially, it is proposed to standardize the sunshine procurement behavior of pharmaceutical enterprises by establishing a negative list and credit scoring management indicator system for sunshine procurement of pharmaceuticals and medical consumables throughout the province.

Specifically, unlike most rating systems, the "Management Measures" will classify and develop a negative list based on the actual situation of Sunshine Procurement. Each behavior in the negative list will be scored and dynamically updated based on factors such as behavior nature, plot, timeliness, and impact.

The resulting credit score will serve as an important entry threshold for bidding and procurement activities.

All pharmaceutical enterprises that are participating in or planning to participate in the procurement of Jiangsu Sunshine will be included in the credit scoring management category, including drug marketing license holders, pharmaceutical and medical consumables manufacturers, distribution enterprises that have a principal-agent relationship with the production enterprise, and distribution enterprises.

Zero tolerance for bidding and procurement violations,

Violators are prohibited from entering the market

In terms of implementation, the "Management Measures" almost include all types of procurement activities throughout the process into the scope of supervision.

Among them, online procurement covers the qualification declaration and online stage to the supply and distribution stage;

Purchasing with quantity covers the qualification declaration stage - winning price generation stage - execution supply stage.

That is to say, all pharmaceutical enterprises participating in the centralized procurement of drugs and devices within the province will have their behaviors included in the "supervision" of big data intelligence, and all operations beyond the scope will be recorded in the rating and updated in real time

Each score will be accompanied by the enterprise for 3 years from the date of publication, and will be implemented cumulatively.

Once the cumulative score reaches 30 points, the enterprise will be marked with a credit score on the provincial pharmaceutical centralized procurement platform; If the score reaches 50, the qualification for hanging drugs and medical consumables on the network, bidding, or distribution will be suspended for no less than three months.

On this basis, for every 20 points increase in the cumulative score, the penalty period will be doubled, and the maximum penalty will be no less than one year's ban on procurement activities in the province.

Jiangsu Medical Insurance Bureau has notified that the "blacklist" of pharmaceutical and mechanical enterprises has been upgraded (Figure 1)

The one-year penalty period may not sound long, but the punishment is not targeted at the corresponding product, but rather all the drugs and medical consumables of the enterprise, and the scoring rules set this time are not gentle.

For example, in online procurement, if the declaration is not based on the lowest online price at the national and provincial levels, the online product will be scored directly, with 5 points for each single product; In the case of volume procurement, if the declaration is not based on the lowest online price and the selected (alternative) price for volume procurement at each provincial level in the country, 10 points will be recorded for each single product.

In addition, there are 5 types of violations, 50 points per occurrence, and 70 points per occurrence for Type 1 violations

In other words, under this set of rules, the opportunities for enterprises to make trial and error are extremely limited, and even if they make a mistake only once, they will be placed on the "sanctioned list".

National bidding and procurement access, the first step of credit

It is worth noting that similar credit access mechanisms have been rolled out and implemented in many places throughout the country.

Prior to the promulgation of the "Management Measures", in July 21, 1792 pharmaceutical and medical consumables enterprises were cancelled their provincial platform accounts by the Jiangsu Pharmaceutical Equipment Tendering and Procurement Service Center due to their failure to submit the "Letter of Credit Commitment for Pharmaceutical Enterprise Price and Marketing Behavior", which prevented them from participating in all online procurement activities in the province.

In September 21, the Shandong Provincial Public Resources Trading Center rated the well-known pharmaceutical company North China Pharmaceutical as "seriously dishonest", suspended its 3-year online qualification for its corresponding product, and canceled its application qualification for participating in the centralized procurement of drugs organized by the province from August 11, 2021 to May 10, 2022.

In May 22, the Sichuan Provincial Centralized Procurement Platform for Pharmaceutical Devices cancelled the qualification for online listing of 226 consumable products from 8 enterprises with repeated declarations and price differences, and 2 products from 1 enterprise, and canceled the online listing application for related products within two years; In addition, 504 consumable products from 12 enterprises and 1 in vitro diagnostic product from 1 enterprise were withdrawn from the network.

In addition to the provincial level, the country has also been reviewing and monitoring the national procurement data for consumables. At the end of 21 years, a batch of medical consumables from 18 enterprises in Shaanxi Province were directly cancelled and linked to the Internet due to providing invalid and forged invoices, which were reported materials transferred from the Medical Pricing and Bidding Procurement Guidance Center of the National Medical Insurance Bureau.

At the same time, the Medical Pricing and Bidding Procurement Guidance Center of the National Health Insurance Bureau will regularly publish a list of pharmaceutical enterprises rated as "particularly serious" and "seriously" dishonest, and restrict or suspend the company's involvement in the case or all drugs or medical consumables from being online, bidding, or distribution qualified.

Under this background, relevant production, distribution, and distribution enterprises must cherish their feathers more and be careful not to become the first group of people to be "kicked out" of the market in the process of punishment.