On November 1, the national standard "Basic Requirements for Socialized Accompanying Medical Services" approved by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Standardization Administration Committee was officially implemented. This is the first national standard in the field of medical escort services in my country. Medical escort services have become more and more popular in recent years. What exactly is medical escort? Which groups of people need this service the most? What is the current development status of the industry? What are the practical problems that need to be solved urgently? In what aspects will this new national standard, which will be implemented on November 1, set rules for the industry?
Just after eight o'clock in the morning, the accompanying clinician Jiang Chenchen came to pick up the elderly person who was to be accompanied by the doctor today as agreed. Lun Xiuqin is 87 years old and suffers from chronic diseases and needs to go to the hospital for regular check-ups. This time, my family was busy and couldn't get away, so I made an appointment with a doctor to accompany the old man. Jiang Chenchen is a social worker in a public welfare organization. She just passed the relevant training and assessment of accompanying patients and entered this industry in July. Jiang Chenchen pushed the old man in a wheelchair, took care of the entire medical treatment process, and sent the old man home safely. This time the accompanying medical service was completed.
Following this process, you can see that the work of the accompanying clinician covers taking numbers, checking in, helping the elderly communicate with doctors, helping with payment, accompanying various examinations, taking medicines, and obtaining reports, etc. Simply put, a medical attendant is a service staff who accompanies patients to see a doctor and helps with all the trivial matters of medical treatment.
Chen Meng, associate researcher at the China Institute of Standardization: Accompanying medical services are positioned as auxiliary services and cannot replace a doctor's diagnosis and treatment. They do not interpret test results, participate in medical decision-making, or provide medical advice. They cannot replace patients in making independent decisions.
So, which groups really need medical companionship?
Researcher Hao Xiaoning, deputy director of the Health Economics and Security Research Department of the Health Development Research Center of the National Health Commission: After entering an aging society, everyone is paying more attention to the elderly and the elderly living alone, including those with diseases. Who will accompany them when they go to the doctor for consultation? In big cities, the medical procedures are cumbersome, and there is a real need for specialized people to help the elderly solve various problems they encounter during the medical treatment process.
Nowadays, most hospital registration and payment are done online, and departments are divided into more and more details. The threshold for medical treatment has become higher for the elderly, and this group has a particularly strong demand for medical companionship.
Zhou Lili, Chairman of the Medical Accompanying Professional Committee of the China Association of Social Welfare and Elderly Care Services: The core value of accompanying medical services lies in accurately responding to the structural needs of an aging society. According to statistics, more than 60% of the patients served by accompanying patients are elderly people, and 40% of them are from other groups.
Not only the elderly need medical companions, but also many patients who come to big cities for medical treatment, people with limited mobility, patients with chronic diseases who go to the hospital all year round, parents who take their children to see a doctor alone, unaccompanied pregnant and lying-in women, and even many young people who see doctors alone will seek help from medical companions.
One end is the actual needs of diverse groups of people, and the other end is the market size that is driven by demand to grow rapidly. Accompanying patients, a profession that sounded new a few years ago, is entering the lives of ordinary people faster and faster. However, the demand is real, but what will happen to ordinary people who want to make an appointment to accompany a doctor?
Blocking point 1: Can’t find formal channels
The reporter searched for "accompanying patients" on the Internet and saw that many practitioners posted directly through social platforms to take orders. They have no institutional affiliation, no unified service standards, and prices are all negotiated through private conversations. The reporter contacted several personal attendants. When asked whether they had a training certificate and whether they had signed a service contract, most of them replied, "We have been doing this for a long time, don't worry." "You don't need to sign a contract, we can just agree online."
In order to solve these problems, many places have begun pilot experiments, and the national level is also stepping up efforts to improve relevant systems. For example, in response to the most frequently reported question of “where can we provide formal medical accompanying services?”, Shanghai has opened up two channels, online and offline. The reporter also experienced it separately: at the Weifang Community Comprehensive Service Center for the Elderly in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, you can log in to a self-service machine and make an offline appointment for accompanying medical services. When you click on the accompanying medical section, you can see each hospital at a glance, and the charging standards are directly displayed on the page. The elderly can operate it by themselves. If they don’t understand, they can also ask the on-site staff for help. The civil affairs departments of various districts in Shanghai will also publish the list of regular medical escort agencies to facilitate everyone's verification.
Online, consumers can also make "one-click accompanying" appointments through the mini program "Suishinban". In Pudong New Area, the "Pulaohui" smart medical accompanying platform has joined hands with the hospital to open a consultation window for medical accompanying services, and has launched ten public welfare medical accompanying places every day.
The reporter's investigation found that in addition to being unable to find formal channels, consumers often encounter several other problems when using accompanying medical services.
Blocking Point 2: Prices are not transparent, temporary price increases and no-shows happen from time to time
For the same half-day consultation, under the premise of providing the same service, the price quoted from different channels ranges from 200 yuan to 600 yuan. Some consumers even reported that the price agreed upon when making an appointment was temporarily increased by the accompanying clinician after arriving at the hospital on the grounds of “long queue time” and “many examination items”.
In addition, consumers often reported that after purchasing the accompanying doctor service, the accompanying doctor suddenly broke the appointment and was unable to come near the appointed time. The number that was finally registered was invalidated, which delayed medical treatment. Some platforms also reported that the complaint channels were disconnected.
In response to the problem of price confusion and arbitrary price increases, Shanghai clearly requires that institutions that carry out accompanying medical services must clearly mark their prices, make all charging items public, and charge fees must be well-documented. It is understood that the current reference price for medical escort services in Shanghai is: approximately 50 to 80 yuan per hour in the urban area; 30 to 50 yuan per hour in the suburbs.
Blocking point three: Practitioners lack systematic training and service quality is uneven.
For consumers, in addition to price, what is more important is the quality of accompanying medical services. During the investigation, the reporter learned that in the current medical escort industry, the proportion of practitioners who have received systematic professional training is relatively low, and most practitioners have not received relevant training. Many medical attendants are not familiar with the distribution of hospital departments, treatment procedures, and medical insurance policies. The so-called accompanying patients has become "queuing together" and is not even as efficient as the patients themselves.
In response to "uneven service quality", some places have begun to explore standardizing the competency levels of practitioners. Chengdu, Sichuan took the lead in the country in launching a special professional ability assessment project for medical accompanying services, established standardized test sites, and established an alliance for cultivating medical accompanying services talents; those who passed the assessment were issued the "Special Professional Ability Certificate for Medical Accompanying Services" by the human resources and social security department. In March last year, the first batch of 27 people obtained special professional competency certificates for medical accompanying services. At the same time, the implementation of the professional training system is accelerating. The Social Security Capacity Building Center of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has launched a special training program for medical accompanying consultants. After students complete the course and pass the assessment, they can obtain an official training certificate.
In addition, during the investigation, the reporter found that some "account dealers" were also eyeing this "cake". They were engaged in the business of reselling account sources under the guise of "accompanying doctors".
Not long ago, the Internet Security Detachment of the Shanghai Minhang Public Security Bureau busted a gang that resold accounts in the name of accompanying patients. In March this year, the Internet Security Detachment of the Shanghai Minhang Public Security Bureau received a report from a top-level hospital in the area: the hospital's online registration applet showed that a large number of expert accounts had been filled, but the actual attendance rate was not high, and many accounts were unavailable.
The police launched an in-depth investigation and discovered a black industry chain under the guise of "accompanying medical services". Four so-called "clinicians" posted advertising information about "hospital appointment registration" through online channels and took orders online; the criminal suspect Li used software and other means to grab the appointments, and then the so-called "clinicians" resold them at a higher price. At present, Li and others have been criminally detained by the police in accordance with the law on suspicion of illegally obtaining computer information system data.
In order to solve the growing pains of this industry, the pace of system construction is also accelerating at the national level. On July 2, 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Standardization Administration Committee approved the release of the national standard "Basic Requirements for Socialized Accompanying Medical Services", which will be officially implemented on November 1, 2026. This is the first national standard in the field of medical escort services in my country.
In view of the confusion of medical accompanying service entities and the existing problems and hidden dangers in the service, the national standards provide clear specifications for the institutional operating entities. However, the national standards are applicable to social medical accompanying medical service agencies and do not directly restrict individual medical accompanying personnel without institutional affiliation.
Chen Meng: This standard takes service business entities as the regulatory targets, mainly out of practical considerations of having entities to pursue and objects to manage. For a large number of individual practitioners who are in a state of "three noes", it may be necessary to gradually tighten the situation of having no subjects to pursue by consolidating platform responsibilities and establishing a practitioner management mechanism.
Experts point out that social platforms and life service platforms cannot allow individuals to publish advertisements for accompanying patients and receiving orders at will on the platform; the platform must establish an audit and filing mechanism to control the entrance to online publishing.
In response to the issues of privacy leakage and difficulty in safeguarding rights, the national standard puts forward rigid constraints on institutions: service providers should collect service object information and conduct service risk assessments; they should sign written or electronic service contracts with customers on the basis of equality, voluntariness, and information symmetry. The contract needs to state the complete service plan, fee details, etc. At the same time, the organization must establish a privacy information protection system and emergency plan to achieve traceability of services and provide a basis for determining liability after a dispute occurs.
However, the implementation of the regulations still faces practical shortcomings: at present, the accompanying industry has not been included in the national professional qualification catalog, there is no unified national practice qualification certificate, and there are no mandatory requirements for holding a certificate to work.
With the advent of an aging society, accompanying medical services have emerged, improving people's medical experience and increasing their convenience and satisfaction in seeing a doctor. It is expected that as industry standards continue to be implemented and improved, medical accompaniment can become a reliable "heart-warming helper" for special groups on their way to medical treatment, making medical treatment more warm and secure, helping to build a healthy China, and making people's livelihood and health more warm and solid.
Editor丨Li Jing Liu Lin Hong Zhenyan Guo Zhen
Videography丨Xu Peng, Wang Shoucheng, Huang Tianyi
Editing丨Zheng Yu Miao Jialiang
Planning丨Eu Yanshan Niu Yanmin
