Recently, the National Healthcare Security Administration, together with the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and other departments, carried out a special rectification of prominent issues in the management of medical insurance funds nationwide. With the clue of "abnormal drug traceability codes" as an important lever, a comprehensive investigation was carried out in three stages to identify prominent issues such as suspected reselling of "returned drugs" by designated medical institutions. As of now, the first phase of the verification task has been completed, and the second phase of special verification work will be deployed in August 2025. The third phase of concentrated attack action will be carried out from October to December. The relevant person in charge of the National Medical Insurance Administration introduced that currently, while the medical insurance policy benefits the people, some illegal elements also take the opportunity to illegally buy and sell drugs for profit, inducing insured persons to resell medical insurance drugs through means such as "medical insurance cash withdrawal" and "high price recycling". This type of drug obtained through medical insurance reimbursement channels and illegally resold in the market is called "medical insurance return drug". Reflux drugs often have expired and improperly stored conditions, which not only harm the safety of medical insurance funds and disrupt the order of the drug market, but also seriously threaten the safety of medication for the public. Since the National Healthcare Security Administration promoted the collection and application of drug traceability codes nationwide in 2024, data barriers have been broken down, and the construction of drug traceability systems has extended to end users such as hospitals, pharmacies, and insured persons. As of now, a total of 39.885 billion drug traceability codes have been collected to help combat the problem of "returning drugs" in the pharmaceutical industry. The drug traceability code is the "electronic ID card" of each box of drugs, which has uniqueness. The traceability code for a box of drugs should only have a record of being scanned and sold once. If it appears multiple times, there may be counterfeit drugs, "returned drugs," or drugs being sold through collusion. After the implementation of drug traceability codes, the medical insurance department will settle payments based on the codes. If the codes are not scanned or if there are duplicate scans, the medical insurance fund will refuse payment and relevant responsibilities will be pursued to improve the effectiveness of drug supervision; By scanning the code, detailed drug sales information can be obtained, which not only makes the public feel more at ease when purchasing drugs, but also promotes their joint participation in drug safety management and maintains medication safety. In March 2025, the National Healthcare Security Administration, together with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the National Health Commission, and the National Medical Products Administration, issued a notice on strengthening the collection and application of drug traceability codes in the fields of medical security and work-related injury insurance, which clearly requires designated medical institutions to scan codes as required in the sales process before settling medical insurance funds from July 1st. At present, the national medical insurance service platform has opened the function of querying the traceability information of medical insurance drugs and consumables. All pharmacies can use this function to scan and check the purchased drugs. When there is an abnormality in scanning the code, it is recommended to refuse to receive the goods, record the transaction time, location, personnel characteristics, save chat records, drug photos, transfer vouchers and other evidence, and report to relevant departments. The person in charge of the National Medical Insurance Bureau stated that according to relevant laws and regulations, the sale of "returned drugs" will face penalties such as fines and administrative penalties. At present, the social consensus of "buying drugs with prior codes and selling drugs with scan codes" has been basically formed. About 5 million consumers use drug traceability codes to verify the authenticity of drugs and actively protect their rights every day. The relevant person in charge of the National Healthcare Security Administration stated that they will continue to strengthen the use of drug traceability codes for supervision, and work together with relevant departments to launch strict crackdowns on the entire chain and various links of reselling "returned drugs". Through multiple investigations and joint punishment of one case, they will promote the comprehensive governance of reselling "returned drugs", ensure the safety of people's medication, and firmly guard the bottom line of medical insurance fund safety. (New Society)