

Going to the hospital to see a doctor may be the most vulnerable time for most people. Whether you are sick or your family is sick, the process of seeking medical treatment is always full of pain and anxiety from the disease itself, and on the other hand, you have to complete a series of time-consuming and labor-intensive operations such as registration, queuing, seeing a doctor, checking up and taking medicine in a bustling hospital. It is not enough to accompany you to eat, drink and chat. Nowadays, "accompanying the doctor" also meets the needs of society and enters people’s sight. What kind of experience would it be if someone could accompany you to see a doctor all the time? Can I help you run errands and accompany you when you see a doctor? Recently, the reporter experienced this service by placing an order.
Yangzi Evening News/Zi Niu News Trainee Reporter Lu Yanlin Xu Qianqian
Journalist experience
188 yuan for a "no need to think" medical experience
It is not difficult to find the service of accompanying doctors, but it is not simple. In the mobile phone application market, key words such as "accompanying the doctor", "enjoying accompanying the doctor" and "seeking medical help app" were entered … These applications that seemed to provide services immediately jumped out. However, after downloading, it was found that not all the software was open to the national market.
A few days ago, the reporter chose a platform that has opened the Nanjing market to order services. On this platform, there are three kinds of "professional consultation" with the same duration of 3 hours to choose from, including 188 yuan "full consultation", 498 yuan "exclusive VIP consultation" and 1321 yuan "family package". "Exclusive VIP escort" can enjoy more comprehensive services such as "local pick-up" and "advance appointment number" (including expert number). When placing an order, no matter which service type you choose, you need to fill in information such as hospital, patient, expected medical time, department and so on.
One day after placing the order, Zhang Weicai, the accompanying doctor, contacted by phone and added WeChat to the reporter. In the communication before seeing a doctor, Zhang Wei told the reporter that the CT reexamination of pulmonary nodules can be registered on the same day without an appointment, and like the "pre-diagnosis tips for understanding medical history" promoted by the platform, the reporter is reminded to bring a medical insurance card, and the examination does not need an empty stomach. At 8 o’clock the next morning, the reporter met Zhang Wei, an accompanying doctor, on time in a 3A hospital in Nanjing. She was familiar with the process. During the three hours waiting to enter the consulting room, Zhang Wei got up every 45 minutes to check the progress, and always helped the reporter with the registration form and introduced to the reporter what to do next. It can be said that this is almost a "no brain" experience. As the reporter doesn’t need help yet, Zhang Wei’s biggest role seems to be "running errands" and "chatting" in the process of "accompanying the doctor".
Industry interpretation
Resigned nurses do part-time consultation, relying on experience and contacts.
Zhang Wei is a 24-year-old young girl. She graduated from Nanjing Higher Vocational and Technical School of Health. Her first job was as a nurse in the physical examination center of a 3A hospital in Nanjing. "The salary was too low, so she chose to resign." After resigning, Zhang Wei chose to join a health management company, and working as an accompanying doctor was a part-time job outside her flexible working hours.
Zhang Wei admits that there are not many lists for the whole process. "I don’t get a list of accompanying doctors every day, but I can also get a few orders every week." Because of her experience and personal resources in the top three hospitals, Zhang Wei’s part-time job still provides some "running errands" services that she is familiar with. "For example, some chronic patients in different places can’t come to Nanjing to get medicine every month, so I can help them get medicine and send it to them." Because of familiarity, the hospitals that have worked and practiced are the "main battlefields" of Zhang Wei’s part-time job.
For nearly three years, Zhang Wei feels that many elderly people do have the need to accompany them. "Sometimes children are too busy or not in the local area. Although the accompanying service is not cheap, it may always take time off to accompany parents to’ lose’ more. " In Zhang Wei’s view, at present, large hospitals, especially top-three hospitals, are large in size and volume, which inevitably leads to unreasonable layout, which is also one of the reasons for the birth of "full-time accompanying doctors". "Sometimes registration, medical treatment, examination and medicine taking are not on the same floor, which is still very troublesome for the elderly who are’ sick in one body’." This inconvenience is also reflected in the fact that the elderly are unfamiliar with online registration, mobile payment and other operating systems. At the same time, the accelerated aging and intelligence make it even more difficult for the elderly to "seek medical treatment". However, Zhang Wei bluntly said that although elderly patients have more needs for accompanying doctors, as "customers", the elderly often have low cooperation.
At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the customer service of the platform also paid a return visit to the reporter, asking whether the accompanying service was satisfactory and whether there was any invisible sales promotion.
Accompaniment service has a long history, and the "army" of demand is still the elderly.
Is accompanying the doctor a new thing? In fact, it has a long history. In 2003, China News Service published a report entitled "Difficult to see a doctor gave birth to Beijing’s escort service industry". It was mentioned in the article that escort service appeared in Beijing several years ago, and most of them were personal behaviors. They exchange service fees of tens or hundreds of yuan by helping to draw prices, pay fees and get medicines.
A steady stream of demand can give birth to greater opportunities in the market, and if the accompanying consultation service is to develop in a large scale, consumers will have to buy it. As Zhang Wei said, the "army" that needs to accompany the whole process is still concentrated in the elderly group. The reporter also found in the investigation that when asked, "Spend 200-500 yuan and wait for someone to accompany you to see a doctor, do you pay for this money?" The answer needs to be discussed in different situations. "I won’t spend this money to accompany myself, but if I work in a foreign country and my parents in my hometown need it, I will buy such services for them." "Very good, many hospitals in big cities are very complicated, and it will be much easier to have accompanying doctors." ……
From the demand side, it seems that the main connotation of accompanying medical service has not changed much in the past 20 years.
Thinking about problems
A
There are many channels for accompanying consultation services, and there are not a few private orders.
In the past 20 years, the rich terms that can be quickly jumped out by searching for "accompanying diagnosis" on the Internet now suggest that "accompanying diagnosis" is "blooming everywhere" in more diverse forms. In addition to the APP directly labeled as the escort service, many information related to "escort service" can be searched on platforms such as WeChat applet, Little Red Book and even Tik Tok. Zhang Wei, the accompanying doctor, also told the reporter that she had taken orders on the BOSS direct employment APP and completed the accompanying medical needs.
Compared with the clear price tag, service content, service instructions and ordering process on the accompanying clinic APP, the accompanying clinics found through other platforms are almost invariably "contacted" to some private WeChat. There is no "prescribed action" when placing an order on a third-party platform, and the chaotic private order of directly "talking about the price code" seems to have become the reason why some people are not optimistic about the accompanying consultation service. On the Weibo, the reporter also found a blogger named "Hospital Attendant". When a private letter asked about matters related to accompanying the doctor, he received an automatic reply: Please add WeChat … According to a citizen who added such WeChat, in addition to the basic one-on-one accompanying doctor’s fee, it ranged from door-to-door pick-up, queuing on behalf of an appointment, to directly hanging up the expert number in the industry, and the other party reported that it needed to add different extra fees, and private orders were accompanied by the doctor.
B
The government buys services and walks out of the new idea of accompanying doctors.
A considerable number of people have needs, but the existing market is uneven. How can the government "add a handful of firewood and a fire" for the better development of the accompanying medical service? In addition to commercial platforms and private orders, the reporter also found that the Suzhou Gusu district government has stepped out of new ideas by helping innovative home-based care service platforms.
The "Accompanying Medical Road" platform, which was launched in 2018, has tried a number of projects in recent years, providing full-time accompanying services for the elderly, families who have lost their families and severely blind people in their jurisdiction, and achieved good results. As a government assistance project, in addition to being included in the government assistance object, you can experience it free of charge, and you can also spend each order to buy it by yourself in 120 yuan. According to Wang Caihong, director of the platform in general manager office, the current "accompanying medical service" is different from most commercial platforms, and 120 yuan enjoys unlimited service. "As long as it is within 5 kilometers from the user’s home to the hospital, it is this price. 120 yuan’s escort service includes the whole process of medical treatment, from going out to going home, and there is no time limit within one day. "
It is worth noting that, because the platform of "Accompanying Medical Road" accurately serves the elderly, those who have lost their independence and the disabled, and 90% of the accompanying doctors on this platform are "young people" whose average age has just retired, Wang Caihong told reporters that "Accompanying Medical Road" provides protection for both patients and accompanying doctors. "After the appointment service is successful, the platform will give a’ 1 guarantee 2′ comprehensive insurance. This insurance covers accidental injuries that occur during the whole process of accompanying the doctor and the patient, so that both parties have more protection. "
C
To truly solve the contradiction, we need many means to achieve it.
Chen Honglin, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Social Development and Public Policy of Fudan University, pointed out that this phenomenon is a natural demand caused by many difficulties in seeking medical treatment and many complicated links in the process of seeking medical treatment in today’s society. "It is also a natural product of the process of’ empty nest’ and’ declining birthrate’ brought about by an aging society."
In the investigation, the reporter found that some hospitals have arranged a certain number of medical guidance volunteers on the normal opening day, but it is obvious that the "limited" medical guidance of hospitals cannot fully meet the "personalized" needs of every patient.
In this regard, Chen Honglin believes that the proportion of elderly people in the existing population base has greatly increased, so the proportion of elderly people seeking medical treatment will also increase greatly. "Due to chronic diseases and other concentrated manifestations of high-risk diseases in the elderly, medical resources will be relatively scarce. Under the existing social medical conditions, if the hospital is allowed to undertake this medical guidance service, it will indeed be nervous. "
The high fees and confusion of commercial platforms reflect the imperfection of relevant policies, laws and regulations, but in addition, Chen Honglin pointed out that there will be many hidden problems that need to be restrained, "for example, ethical issues between service personnel and clients, etc." " In Chen Honglin’s view, it is a good way to introduce non-governmental non-profit organizations while strengthening supervision after establishing norms.
It can be seen that the existence of "accompanying diagnosis" service has its reasons, but it needs to achieve better resource allocation and service supply through institutional means, professional matching and construction means, market behavior norms means and scientific and technological means.

































