China Issues Unified Lab Testing Pricing Guidelines With 662 Main Items

The National Healthcare Security Administration has recently issued the Guidelines for Price Item Establishment for Laboratory Testing Medical Services (Trial) together with its mapping table, consolidating existing price item norms into 662 main items, 114 additional charge items and 7 extended items. The guidelines cover major areas including clinical testing, blood transfusion and blood typing, biochemistry, immunology, microbiology and parasitology, and molecular diagnostics, with the aim of defining unified norms for laboratory testing medical service price items nationwide.

Laboratory medicine is a key pillar supporting clinical diagnosis and treatment, providing evidence for disease diagnosis, therapeutic monitoring and prognosis assessment through routine blood and urine tests, microbiological screening and genetic testing. In recent years, the domestic in vitro diagnostics industry has grown rapidly, with China's in vitro diagnostic reagent market reaching approximately RMB 130 billion in 2025. Previously, laboratory testing fee items varied from region to region, and the same indicator was often priced separately according to different methodologies — long-standing problems that hindered mutual recognition of test results and inconvenienced patients. The release of these laboratory testing guidelines marks the full completion of the compilation of 40 batches of medical service price item guidelines spanning several years, and a nationally unified medical service price item system has essentially taken shape.

According to the work plan, the National Healthcare Security Administration will guide provinces to formulate province-wide unified price benchmarks based on the guidelines. Coordinating regions with pricing authority may reference the provincial benchmarks and determine actual executed price levels through upward or downward floating adjustments.