Published procedure prices

Hernia repair in China: the published price

Five lines, and the first four cost exactly the same: an open inguinal repair, the same repair with a mesh, an umbilical repair, and an abdominal wall repair. A parastomal hernia — a hernia through the side of a stoma — is the odd one out and is dearer. The mesh is explicitly excluded from the inguinal line, which is the clearest illustration of the rule that a published price is not an invoice.

The published price lines

Every line Beijing's schedule publishes for this procedure, with the project code the hospital bills against and the date the schedule took effect. One row per line, not one total.

Item	Published price
Inguinal hernia repair Project code: HQS83301 Procedure line · Standard public ward Procedure line only. Beijing's schedule excludes sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant/mesh, the fixation device, and the clean operating theatre itself — all billed on top. Standard public ward, not an international-department price.	$83¥560
Tension-free (mesh) inguinal hernia repair Project code: HQS83302 Procedure line · Standard public ward Procedure line only. Beijing's schedule excludes sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant/mesh, the fixation device, and the clean operating theatre itself — all billed on top. Standard public ward, not an international-department price. The mesh is explicitly excluded from this line, which is the clearest possible illustration of the rule.	$83¥560
Umbilical hernia repair Project code: HQQ83302 Procedure line · Standard public ward Procedure line only. Beijing's schedule excludes sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant/mesh, the fixation device, and the clean operating theatre itself — all billed on top. Standard public ward, not an international-department price.	$83¥560
Abdominal wall hernia repair Project code: HQR83301 Procedure line · Standard public ward Procedure line only. Beijing's schedule excludes sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant/mesh, the fixation device, and the clean operating theatre itself — all billed on top. Standard public ward, not an international-department price.	$83¥560
Parastomal hernia repair Project code: HQT83301 Procedure line · Standard public ward Procedure line only. Beijing's schedule excludes sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant/mesh, the fixation device, and the clean operating theatre itself — all billed on top. Standard public ward, not an international-department price.	$127¥851

Source: Mar 26, 2024

Chinese hospitals publish prices in CNY; the CNY figures are converted for readability using an indicative rate and are not a quoted price. International-department services are priced by each hospital and are typically well above these statutory rates. Always obtain a written quote before travelling.

What this price is

A line in Beijing's published medical service price schedule: the rate a hospital in that city bills against for the procedure itself, for a patient on the standard public ward. It is not a quote, not an estimate and not a total. An international department sets its own prices, and a patient who is not on the Chinese insurance system is usually charged under that department's list — which is higher, sometimes considerably higher.

What the line does not cover

A published surgical price is the procedure line, never the invoice. The schedule says which items each line excludes, and the row above prints that list. Sutures, haemostatic materials, drains, the laparoscope and its consumables, staplers, clips, energy devices, anti-adhesion film, glue, the implant or mesh, the fixation device, imaging guidance in theatre and the clean operating theatre itself are billed on top. So are the ward, the medicines and the investigations before and after. The figure in the table is the part that is published; the invoice is not.

What the stay costs on top

A bed is a bed, wherever you are admitted, so the published ward rates apply to every one of these procedures. They are per day, and they are the clearest published account of what actually drives cost in a Chinese hospital: ward class, not privacy.

What a hospital bed costs per day in Beijing

General ward bed¥50
/ day
Three-bed room¥60
/ day
Intensive care unit bed¥60
/ day
Single room¥80
/ day
ISO-7 cleanroom bed¥300
/ day
Special protective ward bed¥1,100
/ day

Published daily rates. The spread across room types is small — a single room costs ¥30 more than a shared one — while the spread across ward classes is 22 times. The multiplier in a Chinese hospital is ward class, not privacy.

Ward rates (per day)

Where to have it

The hospitals we list that carry this specialty, with the reputation positions we can attribute to a source. A published schedule line tells you what the procedure costs in a Chinese city. It does not tell you which hospital to go to, and it is not a quality ranking.

General Surgery

#1in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	Peking Union Medical College Hospital中国医学科学院北京协和医院 · Beijing
#2in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	Zhongshan Hospital (Shanghai)复旦大学附属中山医院 · Shanghai
#3in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	West China Hospital, Sichuan University四川大学华西医院 · Chengdu
#4in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	Ruijin Hospital上海交通大学医学院附属瑞金医院 · Shanghai
#5in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	PLA General Hospital中国人民解放军总医院 · Beijing
#6in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	Tongji Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology华中科技大学同济医学院附属同济医院 · Wuhan
#7in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine浙江大学医学院附属第一医院 · Hangzhou
#8in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University中山大学附属第一医院 · Guangzhou
#9in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine浙江大学医学院附属第二医院 · Hangzhou
#10in General Surgery 2023 · Fudan SRCAIH	Peking University People's Hospital北京大学人民医院 · Beijing

Other procedures with published prices

The rest of the schedule we have read, grouped by the operation a patient would name.

Four questions to ask before you book

Each of these gets you a written answer from the hospital. Nothing on this page can.

1. Do you have a dedicated international department, and will it see a patient who is paying for themselves?
2. Do you bill international insurers directly, or do I pay and claim back?
3. Can you give me a written estimate before I book, and what is the deposit?
4. Will my records and discharge summary be in English?

Send those four questions to the hospital's international department in writing, before you travel, and keep the answers. A written answer from the hospital is worth more than any estimate on this page, including the ones we have published.

Source: Beijing Municipal Healthcare Security Bureau, published medical service price schedule, dated 26 March 2024. Prices confirmed 2024-03-26 and are flagged as needing re-checking before you rely on them. These are standard public-ward rates; an international patient self-paying in a private or international ward will pay more, sometimes considerably more.