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China Negotiating, China Healthcare, Deers in Headlights: This is China
I have recently been communicating via email with a good friend of mine who has lived in Shanghai for around 20 years. He had written me about our recent series on negotiating with Chinese companies. In particular, we talked about when we push back against the Chinese companies, they are completely unprepared and assume a deer in headlights look. He then emailed me the following regarding the health care his pregnant wife has been receiving. I thought it interesting and relevant to our readers and so I secured his permission to run it here, after stripping it of all identifiers.
Enjoy.
Speaking of China and deer in headlights get this:
My wife receives prenatal care at a privately run maternity hospital in China. Since we have no insurance we paid 20,000RMB (3,500USD) for the prenatal package in cash. It’s been ok, getting this means she doesn’t have to take a number and wait for the 100 people ahead of her to go first as in many local hospitals. They did “fear monger” her into a useless test (because we have a pet cat) for an extra 500RMB (which I forewarned her about but she fell for it anyway). no big deal.
EVERY time since our second check up though the first thing out of the nurse’s mouths is: “have you paid for your birth package?” And it’s from 3-4 nurses each time. This has gotten annoying. Acting as a collection agency shouldn’t really fall to the “care giver”. Many people opt to have prenatal here and then go to the USA for the birth, I understand it’s a business but let’s have a little bit of professional decorum shall we?
For a basic natural childbirth package it’s 30,000RMB. But come to find out, they outsource it down the road to a local hospital. We were shown the fancy private room they rent out but if you read between the lines it’s easy to see the private hospital flips the local hospital 5,000RMB and pockets the rest. To have our “doctor” (who’s not impressive in any way) it’s a cool 45,000RMB. This doctor asks my wife’s age every visit. She’s 34 and since over 35 is considered high risk pregnancy in China and therefore more expensive, I almost get the sense he is asking each time to try to make more.
They have a shiny new center that is their showcase hospital, one nurse says that’s where we are to go and the next one contradicts her. No one is on the same page. When we pressed the customer service manager on which hospital we should go to when labor begins her answer was “you should call us to let you know what hospital to go to,” with a vague explanation about room availability as the logic behind her answer. How can you book a room for giving birth? it’s not a sure thing when the baby will come.
At our most recent ultrasound, the nurse, as always, led with “have you paid for the delivery package yet?” . She even came into the ultrasound room and was literally trying to force the document into my wife’s hands while her dress was up, legs in stirrups and belly exposed. I had visions of her signing the document on her bare belly. My wife told her we hadn’t decided (largely because of all the nurses’ greedy behavior). The nurse then turned to me and said “your wife needs to sign this.” I waved her off and said in English we haven’t decided. The room was filled with tension caused by this nurse’s aggressive behavior. She then told my wife we HAD to pay today. We paid for 40 weeks and the customer service rep told us on an earlier visit it wasn’t a problem to wait.
My wife started to worry and I argued with her a bit outside the office (we never argue). I had a sit down with the customer service manager and told her that each time we came, the nurses’ unprofessionalism has caused us to check another local hospital recommended by an acquaintance with an “in” there.
70% of birth’s in China are C-sections largely because the doctors don’t want to wait for the birth. The whole point is we are trying to avoid a C-section (my wife has had not one problem with her pregnancy). This high pressure for the money makes me feel that we are being set up for a money grab. If it’s a C-section, the cost doubles, even to have an epidural or induce labor would tack on an additional 13,500RMB and when the pressure is on, I’m sure many couples agree out of fear. The nursing staff’s behavior is akin to a boxer telegraphing his next punch, and I’ve ducked many here.
I then pressed the manager about the percentage of people who paid for a 30,000RMB natural childbirth package and then actually had a natural birth. The deer was in the headlights my friend and I put the high beams on. She said 60%, so that’s about 50/50. We were previously told that the percentage of people who paid 45,000RMB that had a natural birth was 85%.
I told her we would check the local hospital to see (it will be a third of the price) how we felt and I asked if we still wanted to use our current hospital would that be ok. Answer: Yes, of course, and a big apology for the nurses repeatedly trying to strong arm us.
Typical China experience, the more you pay the more legal/better it is.
We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.
Source: http://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/06/china-negotiating-china-healthcare-deers-in-headlights-this-is-china.html
