01Where to Go, What It Costs
What should a visitor to China know before they need a doctor?
This page answers three questions and deliberately refuses a fourth. It says where to go when you are ill or something has happened, what document to have in your hand when you get there, and what the bill tends to look like. It does not name a medicine, a dose or a treatment, because a page written in a different country for a reader whose history it does not know has no business doing that.
The system a visitor meets is simpler than it looks, because most of it is not aimed at you. Public hospitals in China are built for volume and run in Chinese. Sitting inside some of the biggest ones, and beside them in the private sector, is a smaller layer built for patients who need English and an itemised bill. Knowing that layer exists is most of what this page has to teach.
Three numbers are worth memorising before anything goes wrong: 120 for an ambulance, 110 for police, 12345 for a government or tourism complaint. All three are free to call. The fourth thing worth doing before you fly is saving your embassy's emergency line, because that is the number you will want when you cannot look one up.
Every figure here was checked on 14 September 2026. Hospital fees are ranges because each hospital sets its own, and where no official national source exists the text says which city or which company the number came from.
02Two Kinds of Doctor
What is the difference between an ordinary outpatient window and an international department?
The ordinary outpatient window of a public hospital is the default, and it is cheap. Registration starts from around 10 RMB and rises with the doctor's seniority, up to roughly 100. You can usually walk in. The waiting room is busy, the staff work in Chinese, and payment is usually cash or a Chinese mobile-pay account, which means a foreign card is unlikely to work at that window.
The second kind is the international medical department, and it costs ten to a hundred times as much. These sit inside top public hospitals, alongside private international hospitals and clinics such as United Family, Raffles and Parkway. You book by phone or through the hospital app, the staff handle English, and a consultation runs roughly 600 to 1,500 RMB at a public hospital's international department and roughly 800 to 2,500 RMB at a private international clinic. Those are ranges rather than price lists, because each hospital sets its own fees and none of them publishes a single national tariff.
What this means for your trip: the price gap is buying you language and paperwork, and the paperwork is what your insurer needs. The pay and apps page covers why a foreign card works at one of these windows and not the other. For something minor where you can point at what hurts, the ordinary window is fine. For anything you expect to claim back, or anything where a misunderstanding would matter, the international department is worth the difference.
Take your passport. It is your ID for the whole process. Two questions are worth asking on the phone before you book: whether the department accepts foreign bank cards, and whether it has a direct-billing agreement with your insurer. Both answers change by hospital.
| Where | Registration or consultation | Language | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary outpatient window, public hospital | From about RMB 10, up to about RMB 100 by seniority | Chinese | Cash or Chinese mobile pay |
| International department, top public hospital | About RMB 600-1,500 | English handled | Ask about foreign cards and direct billing |
| Private international clinic | About RMB 800-2,500 | English handled | Ask about foreign cards and direct billing |
03At the Pharmacy
How do you buy medicine at a Chinese pharmacy?
Neighbourhood pharmacies usually open early and close around 22:00. In larger cities the major chains keep some branches open overnight or run a night window, and a few flagship stores have unmanned round-the-clock vending machines. Hours vary branch by branch, so the storefront sign or a delivery app is more reliable than an assumption.
The mark on the box tells you what you are holding. A red OTC oval means class A, sold only in licensed pharmacies. A green OTC oval means class B, a looser category that can also appear in approved convenience stores. A box with no OTC mark at all is a prescription product, and the pharmacist will ask for a doctor's chufang 处方 before selling it.
Most boxes are labelled in Chinese, so the practical move is to point at a category and not at a product. These are the shelf categories a visitor usually wants: tuishaoyao 退烧药 for fever-related products, zhitongyao 止痛药 for general pain relief, zhixieyao 止泻药 for stomach upset, ganmaoyao 感冒药 for cold-type products, and chuangketie 创可贴 for adhesive bandages, which usually sit in a rack near the counter.
One category is worth knowing because of where it leads. Xiaoyanyao 消炎药 is the word people reach for when they want something strong. Products in that class usually carry no OTC mark, which means a prescription, which means a doctor first.
Two habits make this go better. Read the box label and the leaflet before buying, and bring the pack of anything you take at home so the pharmacist can compare labels rather than translate a name.
04Calling 120
How do you call an ambulance in China, and what does it cost?
Dial 120 from any phone in mainland China for a medical emergency. The call is free.
Give three things, in this order: where, what, how many. Where you are, as a building name, a street, the nearest crossroads or a landmark. What has happened, in the plainest words you have. How many people need help. If you have no Chinese, say "English, please" at the start.
Language support is a big-city story and the page will not pretend otherwise. Beijing 120 takes calls in eight languages through a three-party link to a municipal multilingual service centre, and Shanghai runs a foreign-language dispatch team. Other major cities usually arrange an interpreter. In a smaller city the operator is likely to answer in Chinese only, and the fastest fix is to hand the phone to somebody nearby who can give the address.
The ambulance is billed, and the crew often asks for cash on arrival. Beijing lists roughly a 50 RMB base covering the first 3 kilometres plus about 7 RMB per kilometre; Shanghai lists roughly a 30 RMB base plus about 7 RMB per kilometre. Most short transfers land under about 300 RMB. This is one of the few situations on this site where cash in your pocket is the difference between smooth and awkward. The pay and apps page says how much to carry.
You can name a hospital, and you may not get it. National pre-hospital emergency rules direct dispatch by nearest, most urgent, matching specialty capability, and the patient's wish where feasible. In a critical case the attending paramedic decides, and that order is the reason why.
05Police and Complaints
What number do you call for police or a tourism complaint in China?
110 is the police number, free and answered around the clock. The safety page covers what ordinary policing looks like for a visitor, and this block covers only how to reach it.
English on 110 follows the same big-city pattern. Beijing and Shanghai both list eight-language handling, Shanghai keeps an interpreter line on 24-hour standby, and Shenzhen 深圳, Guangzhou 广州 and other first-tier cities have added multilingual answering. The first voice is usually Chinese, so say "English, please" and the call is usually routed. Outside those cities, expect Chinese, and the practical move is to call 110 and then hand the phone to a bystander or to hotel staff.
The tourism complaint number in older guidebooks is dead. 12301, the national tourism hotline, was merged into the general government service hotline 12345 by the end of 2021, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. If a tour operator, ticket seller or attraction gives you trouble, the number is 12345 and the thing to ask for is the tourism complaint desk. Guidebooks printed before 2022 still carry the old one.
If you report something in person, take your passport and leave with paper. Ask the station for a written report receipt, the baojing huizhi 报警回执. Insurers ask for it, and your embassy or consulate will usually want to see it if you have lost a passport or a bag. Station formats are not standardised nationally, so the thing to insist on is a stamped document rather than a particular form.
06Your Embassy
What can an embassy do for you in China?
Save the number before you fly. Most countries keep an embassy in Beijing and consulates-general in some combination of Shanghai, Guangzhou 广州, Chengdu 成都 and Shenyang 沈阳. Contact details sit on your own foreign ministry's site, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains a directory of foreign missions.
Jurisdiction is the part people get wrong. A consulate covers a defined group of provinces, and the one that can help you is the one covering the city where the incident happened, which is not always the nearest on a map. Checking that before you travel takes a minute and saves an afternoon.
What an embassy does and does not do. It reissues or replaces a travel document, it can contact family, and it can usually provide a list of local lawyers or English-speaking doctors. It does not pay medical bills, and travel insurance is not required for tourist entry to China, which means medical costs are paid out of pocket and reclaimed afterwards unless your policy direct-bills.
07Insurance
How does travel insurance work at a Chinese hospital?
Which path you are on decides how much cash you need on the day.
Path one is direct billing, and it mostly exists at the expensive layer. Plans from insurers with a China network, among them Cigna, Bupa, Allianz, AXA, Aetna and MSH China, commonly direct-bill at international departments of top public hospitals and at premium private hospitals. Making it work takes one phone call before you go: confirm with your insurer's assistance line that the exact hospital and department are in your plan's network, and ask them to send a payment-authorisation letter to the hospital billing desk. Whether a given visit qualifies comes down to your own policy wording, and network lists move every quarter.
Path two is pay first and claim later, and it is where most short-stay visits land. You settle at the cashier and leave with three papers: the official fiscal invoice, the fapiao 发票, with the hospital seal; the itemised fee list that breaks out drugs, tests and rooms; and a diagnosis certificate signed by the treating doctor.
Collect all three before you leave the building. Ask the billing desk for stamped copies and for an English version where the hospital offers one. Reissuing any of them later means another trip to the same window, and by then you may be in another city.
08What This Page Is Not
What does this health page deliberately not cover?
- It does not name medicines. Not brands, not doses, not what to take for what. Category words are on this page so you can find a shelf and talk to a pharmacist, which is where that conversation belongs.
- It is not a substitute for your policy. Every question about whether a specific visit is covered is answered by your insurer and by nobody else, and the phone call that answers it is the one before you fly.
- It does not predict what a given city can do in English. The cities named here are the ones with a published multilingual service. Silence about a city means no official source was located, and it does not mean the answer is no.
- It is not legal advice on an incident. It says which number to dial and what paper to ask for. What happens after that depends on facts this page does not have.