Elderly Health Card

The Elderly Health Card is an inclusive carrier of public health services issued by the state to seniors over 60 years old. Its core function is to integrate decentralized rights and interests such as chronic disease management, free physical examinations, medical treatment exemptions, and elderly care services. It is neither an "IQ tax" transmitted online, nor a "universal welfare card" that can cover all needs.

A while ago, I followed a public health nurse from a community hospital to issue cards door-to-door. I met Aunt Wang who lives in Building 3. The first thing she said after taking the card was, "Are you asking me to buy health care products again? I don't have money." No wonder she was wary. In the past two years, some third-party organizations did use the name of "senior health card" to sell high-priced health care products door-to-door under the banner of "activating eggs", which scared many elderly people. Here’s a reminder: Regular senior health cards are issued free of charge by communities under the leadership of the local health commission. Anyone who asks you to pay for the production fee or activation fee is a scammer.

Speaking of which, the evaluation of this card has always been quite polarizing. Many grassroots public health practitioners I know complain that they spend a lot of time printing and delivering them door-to-door. Half of the elderly people just stuff them in drawers and collect dust when they receive them. The utilization rate of core rights is less than 30%. It is a pure waste of manpower and material resources. But on the other hand, many elderly people also complain: the free tooth cleaning and bone density test printed on the card, either they don’t have many teeth and cannot use it, or the designated institution is three kilometers away, and the elderly with limited legs and feet can’t reach it even if they walk for half an hour on crutches. Doesn’t it mean that it is useless? I also met an old man who came to the community and asked if this card could give him a discount on vaccinations for his grandson, which really amused us. It’s not that the old man was whimsical. In fact, when many places issue cards, they just give them to people without saying anything. How can the old man know what they can be used for?

But if you really understand how to use this card, you can save a lot of worry. Uncle Li, who lives across the street from me, has been suffering from type 2 diabetes for almost 10 years. He used to spend more than 1,000 a year to test his glycosylated hemoglobin and do fundus examinations. Last year, he used this card to take part in basic national public health projects. These examinations were free of charge, and he could also make a free appointment with a nutritionist in the community to prepare a personalized meal plan for him. In one year, he saved almost 2,000 on the examination fee alone. Now he puts this card in a card holder with the senior bus pass and always takes it with him when he goes out. There is also Grandma Zhang, a disabled elderly person who lives on the first floor of the community. Her family used this card to apply for free door-to-door care twice a month. Nurses will come regularly to change her dressing and clean her body. It is much more cost-effective than hiring a nurse by yourself.

Don’t think that the benefits of senior health cards are the same across the country. There are huge differences in different cities. I went to Hangzhou on a business trip before and saw that the local senior health card was connected to the citizen card. Not only could I use public health services, but I could also use the bus and subway, enter the park for free, and get a 20% discount on meals at the senior canteen. It is almost a must-have when going out. However, the health card issued by my hometown county currently only provides the rights of a basic physical examination once a year. It does not even include the rights of follow-up for chronic diseases. It is indeed not very practical. There is also a very common problem: the health card data in many places are not connected. The elderly take the card to a large hospital to register. The self-service machine cannot recognize the chronic disease exemption rights in the card, and they have to go to the manual window to queue up for review. Elderly people with weak legs and feet have to go through the trouble, but it is better to pay for it themselves.

When I was volunteering before, I helped explain the use of the card to the elderly and found that no one read the densely printed rights manual. Instead, I took a thick marker pen and wrote the rights that the elderly can use directly on the back of the card: If you have high blood pressure, write "free blood pressure and blood sugar test three times a month → general practitioner on the 1st floor of the community"; if you want to be screened for cataracts, write "free screening every Wednesday morning → ophthalmology on the 2nd floor". Write it in larger letters so that the elderly can see it at a glance, and the usage rate will increase immediately.

Last week I went to Aunt Wang’s house for a follow-up visit, and I saw her sticking her health card on the refrigerator door with transparent tape, and next to it was a small note I wrote for her. She clutched the cloth bag she usually used to buy groceries and told me that she would use the card to get a free cataract screening next week. "I thought it was just a useless piece of plastic before, but now that I have it in my bag, I feel safe wherever I go." In fact, the card itself is not that complicated. To put it bluntly, it is a "health red envelope" issued by the state to the elderly. How much benefits can be obtained depends partly on whether the implementation is careful enough, and partly on the fact that we have to say a few words to the elderly at home, so as not to let the good benefits lie in the drawer and collect dust.