Hospitals · China
How to read a Chinese hospital
There is no hospital ranking on this page, because a ranking would need outcome data that nobody publishes in a form you or we could check. What does exist is a tier system, a licensing system, and a separate channel for foreign patients. Learn to read those three and you can shortlist without us.
First, the nouns
医院, 门诊部, 诊所 are three different things
English collapses all of them into “hospital” or “clinic”, which makes Chinese listings confusing. The suffix on the sign is the licence category, and the category determines what the place is allowed to do.
Inpatient beds, 24-hour emergency cover, multiple departments. A 口腔医院 is a hospital specialising in dentistry; a 综合医院 is a general hospital.
Outpatient only, no inpatient beds. Can be large and well equipped — some specialist dental and aesthetic 门诊部 are bigger than a small hospital — but the licence is narrower.
The smallest licensed unit, often one or two chairs. Legal, but with the least equipment and the fewest staff on site.
The ladder
Three tiers, three grades, one ordering
Chinese hospitals are graded on a national standard covering bed count, staff-to-bed ratios, equipment, departments, teaching and research. Tier (级) is the size class; grade (等) is the score within it. 三级甲等 — usually written 3A — is the top.
| Grade | What it indicates | What it’s typically for |
|---|---|---|
| 三级甲等 (3A) | Large, teaching-linked, full department range, highest staffing requirements, usually a provincial or national referral centre | Complex cases, second opinions, surgery; the tier most foreign patients are quoted |
| 三级乙等 (3B) | Same size class, lower score on the same standard | Similar work with shorter queues in some cities |
| 二级 | District-level hospital; fewer specialties, more routine work | Straightforward procedures close to where you’re staying |
| 一级 / 未定级 | Community level or not yet graded | Primary care, follow-up, simple diagnostics |
Note on grading: the grade belongs to the institution and is reviewed periodically. It is not a licence to practise a specialty, and it is not a quality score for a named doctor.
The limit of the label
What 三级甲等 does not tell you
A 3A hospital can have an excellent department and an ordinary one. The grade is awarded to the institution for its overall configuration — beds, equipment, staffing ratios, teaching load — not to the person who will treat you.
This is why the useful question is never “which hospital is best” but “who is doing this procedure, how often, and what is their licence”. In a Chinese public hospital you can ask for the operating dentist’s or surgeon’s 医师执业证书, which carries their registered scope and a registration number. Asking is normal; a refusal is an answer.
The parallel channel
国际部 and 特需门诊: same building, different price
Most large public hospitals run a second, quieter channel for patients who want speed, privacy and English. It goes by several names — 国际医疗部, 国际部, 特需门诊, 特需医疗 — and it is physically inside the same hospital, often on a separate floor with its own entrance.
The important difference is pricing. Standard services in a public hospital follow the government price schedule, which is what makes a capped fee like the dental implant service fee possible. The 特需 / international channel is priced by the hospital rather than by that schedule, so the same operation can cost several times more in the same building.
What you usually get for the premium: appointments by email or phone instead of a queue, English-speaking staff, shorter waits, a private room, and paperwork in a form your insurer at home will accept. What you don’t automatically get: a better surgeon. Ask who is operating either way.
Where foreign patients actually go
Four departments, four different logics
口腔科 / 口腔医院
Dentistry. Split into 口腔种植 (implants), 口腔正畸 (orthodontics), 口腔修复 (prosthodontics) and 牙体牙髓 (endodontics). The only Chinese specialty with a fully published, capped price structure — see the dental care page.
眼科 / 眼科医院
Ophthalmology. Cataract and refractive surgery are usually separate units with their own pre-operative screening. Refractive surgery has a hard eligibility screen — not everyone is a candidate, and the screen is the part worth paying for.
体检中心
Health checkup centres, usually a separate building or floor. Packages are sold as fixed bundles of tests. The useful question is not which package is biggest but which findings the package can actually act on.
医疗美容科 / 整形外科
Medical aesthetics and plastic surgery. Must be licensed as a medical institution with a 医疗美容科. Injectables and surgery performed in an ordinary beauty salon are outside the law, whatever the price.
Practical
How an appointment actually works
Public hospitals run on 挂号 — registration. You register for a department and a doctor, then wait. There are three tiers of registration and the difference is real:
Any available doctor in the department. Cheapest, longest wait, shortest consultation. Fine for tests and follow-up.
A named senior doctor. Limited slots, released on a schedule and often taken within minutes. Book through the hospital’s WeChat account or app, not on the day.
The parallel channel above. Bookable by phone or email, priced separately, usually English-speaking.
Bring your passport — it is the identifier used to create the hospital record, and without it you cannot register. Expect the first visit to be registration, consultation, then tests, with results on a later day. Do not book a flight home for the same week as your first appointment.
The part people forget
Getting your records out of the building
Whatever happens in China, your follow-up happens somewhere else — and a dentist or doctor at home cannot act on a verbal summary. You are entitled to copies of your own medical record; ask at the medical records office (病案室) or the department desk, and expect a small copying fee.
Ask for these five things before you leave, in this order of importance:
- Imaging on the original disc — DICOM files, not phone photos of a screen. No clinician can measure anything from a photograph.
- The written treatment record — 门诊病历 or 出院小结, including what was placed and its brand or lot number if an implant or device was used.
- Lab and pathology reports — the full report, not the one-line conclusion.
- An English summary — ask explicitly. Many international departments will produce one; general departments usually won’t unless asked.
- The itemised invoice — with procedure names and dates, in the form your insurer needs.
Money
Paying as a foreign patient
China’s public medical insurance (医保) does not cover foreign visitors, so you are a self-pay patient: settled at the time of service, in RMB. Public hospitals accept bank cards and mobile payment; international departments generally accept international cards. For anything involving admission, expect a deposit (押金) up front and a settlement bill at discharge.
Two habits worth keeping: ask for the itemised invoice before treatment rather than after, and photograph every receipt. Reimbursement from a plan at home depends on documents you won’t be able to obtain once you have left.