After completing the digital upgrade, businesses can further reduce costs and provide good services to more users, which makes it easier for users to obtain services, and businesses have stronger anti-risk capabilities. Data shows that in the mini program alone, 1 million new merchants have been added in the past year, using mini programs as self-operated carriers to access the Alipay platform to carry out digital operations. Jing Xiandong, Chairman and CEO of Ant Group, said, “Alipay will further increase its opening up. It will provide partners with continuous product upgrades, the opening of more centralized traffic, and the provision of more complete self-operating tools. better service”. It is understood that the service providers who won the “Scoring King” trophy this time have long been committed to helping businesses realize digital transformation. The following is a list of service providers: Shanghai Shouqianba Internet Technology Co., Ltd.: Founded in 2013, Shanghai Shouqianba Internet Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading digital store integrated service provider in China. It provides merchants with mobile payment collection, marketing management software, advertising, supply chain, shared power bank, merchant community, etc. Services, all-round solutions to the needs of offline merchants to open stores. At present, Shouqianba’s business covers 660 cities in China, serving 4 million offline brick-and-mortar businesses, and its customers include both international chain brands and couples’ stores. Receiving Money has won the Alipay Scoring King Award 3 times. Chengdu Sibo Rui Technology Co., Ltd.: Founded in 2010, Chengdu Siborui Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading smart retail service provider in China. It has won the Alipay “Scoring King” award twice. Spirent cooperates with Alipay to provide retail merchants with one-stop smart retail solutions and omni-channel digital marketing tools in the aspects of payment, membership marketing, agency operation services, small program applications, and smart service terminals. Yikelian Information Technology Co., Ltd.: Yikelian Information Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2015 and is a national high-tech enterprise. Yikelian mainly provides development, digital marketing solutions and digital generation operation services for medium and large chain enterprises such as FMCG, catering, shoes and clothing, and has won the Alipay “Score King” award twice. Currently serving nearly 300 large and medium-sized merchants, accounting for 30% of the national convenience store system TOP100. Hubei Lichu Technology Co., Ltd.: Hubei Lichu Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2011. It is one of the earliest domestic enterprises engaged in the research and development and application of aggregate payment technology, providing merchants with a one-stop integrated digital management solution. At present, Lichu Scan has served more than 900,000 offline merchants, and the annual transaction amount is nearly 300 billion yuan. With payment as the core, Lichu Scan provides merchants with a variety of digital services including membership, cashiers, aggregated coupons, aggregated applets, advertising and marketing, and its business covers catering, retail, Baibu, leisure and entertainment, and people’s livelihood. . Hangzhou Miya Information Technology Co., Ltd.: Hangzhou Miya Information Technology Co., Ltd. focuses on helping retailers and brand owners realize digital operations, creating a closed-loop link from aggregate payment, member insights to omni-channel marketing, and providing a new customer-centric “Data+AI+SaaS” A generation of operational services. At present, it has reached cooperation with nearly 50 top 100 retail companies and more than 1,400 retail companies in China, covering more than 150,000 store operation scenarios. Typical customers include China Resources Vanguard, Wal-Mart, Liangpin Shop, Zhou Hei Ya, etc. Shanghai Yuanhui Information Technology Co., Ltd.: Founded in 2013, Shanghai Yuanhui Information Technology Co., Ltd. is a digital marketing solution provider, focusing on new retail, providing brand businesses with full-link technology and digital business services. At present, Yuanhui Technology has served more than 50 well-known domestic and foreign FMCG and Internet companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Budweiser, Mead Johnson, Nestlé and other brands. Easy Point Life E-Commerce Co., Ltd.: Easy Point Life E-Commerce Co., Ltd. was established in 2014 to provide integrated global digital marketing services for chain stores, FMCG brands, catering, banking, travel and other industries, and provide full-link product technical support, membership marketing, and card Coupon marketing, mini program development and operation, IoT payment and other services. At present, Yidian Life’s business covers 31 provinces and cities across the country, and has served more than 100,000+ stores nationwide, including merchants such as Yonghui Supermarket and Wal-Mart. Qingdao Ruitong High-tech Co., Ltd.: Qingdao Ruitong High-tech Co., Ltd. is a digital service provider that uses mobile payment as a starting point to provide retail businesses with digital operation and marketing solutions to promote the improvement of store operating efficiency. By providing merchants with access to various digital capabilities such as IoT payment, precision marketing, membership cards, coupons, and live broadcasts, Ruitong Technology has transformed traditional stores into smart stores. Its cooperative customers include leading businesses in industries such as Procter & Gamble, Pechoin, Liby, and Yili. Ruitong Technology has been deeply involved in the software industry for ten years and has won the 2016 Qingdao Industry Leading Enterprise, the 2017 First Shandong New Kinetic Energy Software Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Excellence Award, and the 2020 Group Digital Innovation Cooperation Award

Allegations against rapid test providers Incorrect billing, high material costs

Status: 14.06.2021 6:12 p.m.

The rapid test chain MediCan is said to have, among other things, billed medical services and estimated excessive material costs for the tests. Learned that NDR , WDR and SZ from judicial circles. By M. Grill, A. Henze, J. Lange, G. Mascolo, C. Basl and P. Milling, NDR / WDR The two heads of the MediCan rapid test chain have been in custody for more than a week. The Bochum public prosecutor’s office had issued arrest warrants against the owner Oguzhan C. and his son and managing director Sertac C. because they are said to have accounted for as medical centers, although they lacked the prerequisites for how WDR , NDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” learned from judicial circles. In addition, they are said to have charged the federal government for antigen tests at higher prices than they actually cost in purchasing. The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating the suspicion that the company billed a significantly higher number of tests with the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians than were actually carried out in the more than 50 centers. The suspected provisional damage amount is in the low double-digit million range, according to the assessment of the public prosecutor. One of the accused is represented by lawyer Reinhard Peters. As he announced on request, there was “an hour-long interrogation by the public prosecutor’s office” last Friday. Mr. C. Senior sticks: “All the tests that he billed have also been carried out.” Peters had no knowledge of the doctors previously mentioned in the MediCan’s legal notice – “as far as I know, according to the file, they have not yet been questioned”. Overall, Peters said of the allegations: “If there are reclaims here, then that will be reimbursed in full. That is no question at all.” His client did not try to disguise anything either, but made everything very open. “I just think that some things may have been misunderstood here. But I don’t see any intention of fraud behind this at all.”

Doctors who were almost never on site

Had only last week WDR , NDR and SZ reports how easy it makes the test regulation to charge excessive prices for rapid tests to the federal government .

06/04/2021

Until the MediCan case was uncovered, the imprint of the chain’s website also listed three medical professionals as “doctors responsible for carrying out the test and training staff”. Since then, the names of these doctors have disappeared. In principle, citizens’ tests that are carried out in rapid test centers under medical supervision can be charged three euros more per test than normal rapid test centers, whose remuneration is capped at 18 euros per test. All three MediCan doctors mentioned were employed full-time as plastic surgeons in a hospital in Lower Saxony, as the hospital confirmed on request, which did not know anything about the secondary activity of the employees. According to his own information, Dr. W. has been working for MediCan since December, Dr. P. and Dr. A. on the other hand only since April. Your task was to “answer telephone queries from the on-site staff,” as the clinic announced on behalf of the doctors. Dr. W. also carried out on-site staff training. He also checked on site every one to two weeks whether the hygiene regulations were being adhered to. “Messrs. Dr. P. and A. were never on site,” the clinic announced on request.

In future there will be no more differentiation in billing

It is not entirely clear whether and when test centers are allowed to charge the higher medical price for rapid tests. While the North Rhine Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians emphasizes that “a doctor must be physically on site” and the KV Berlin also states that a licensed physician “must be constantly present”, Roland Stahl, spokesman for the Federal Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, announces that the doctor will Smear sampling could be delegated, but had to be “mostly on site”.

06/10/2021

The Ministry of Health, in turn, takes the position that a rapid test center can only bill as a medical service provider if “the medical management is closely involved in the care and organizational structures”. It is “not absolutely necessary that the doctor is permanently physically present”. “At the same time, however, it is not sufficient if a test site is formally under medical supervision, for example because it is run by a higher-level company under medical supervision,” writes the department. Before the case became known, 54 test centers nationwide were listed on MediCan’s website, Oguzhan C. himself said that the company had 102 locations. It is noticeable that not only MediCan, but also many test providers advertise the names of doctors on their websites. It is unclear who also bills the higher rate as a medical service provider, especially since the statutory health insurance associations do not answer any questions about individual providers. The sums they pay out are ultimately taxpayers’ money.

There is also a security gap in MediCan

The Federal Ministry of Health wants to end this confusion with the new test regulation. In the future there should no longer be a difference between “the remuneration of medical and non-medical service providers”. In the future, both should only get eight euros for the test and a flat rate for the test material. Some test site operators such as Hamburg’s top dog Moritz Fürste are already complaining that they will then no longer be able to work profitably and will have to close their centers. On the LinkedIn platform, Fürste writes: “If I were to reduce it to eight euros, I would have no choice but to close everything.”

Exclusive 05/27/2021

At Medican there is also the fact that the company apparently also had data security problems. The full names, date of birth, email address and registration date of the customers could therefore be viewed with little effort. This emerges from a report by the IT security collective “Zerforschung” to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the WDR , NDR and SZ is available. Accordingly, booking codes from customers were only available with the seven-digit time stamp of the registration. This made it possible to see the personal data of customers from May: “In short samples, more than 15 percent of the attempts were successful,” the report says. It was no longer possible to determine whether test results could also be viewed. MediCan’s lawyer confirmed that there was a data gap in the booking confirmations. The server is now offline. MediCan’s test centers no longer exist.

Apple is expanding Facetime On the way to the digital campfire

Status: 08.06.2021 7:46 p.m.

Apple renews its Facetime app. The group is not only reacting to competition from providers such as Zoom, but is also opening up to Windows and Android devices. From Marcus Schuler, ARD studio Los Angeles Apple is slowly opening up to Android and Windows devices with its video chat service Facetime. It’s almost a small revolution – at least by Apple standards. Software boss Craig Federighi sold the news as follows: “Not only Apple devices can do something with the Facetime link. Users with Android or Windows can also open it directly in their browser and take part in the chat.” So far, Apple has struggled when it came to opening up core functionalities on its iPhone or desktop computers. But the popularity of video chat services like Zoom has exploded in the Corona crisis. Apple reacts precisely to this development and has given its Facetime app a fundamental facelift.

Competition for Zoom

From there, you can send links to friends with Android phones or Windows computers in order to meet with them in the Facetime chat. Marc Gurman, an analyst at the Bloomberg business service, says Apple is primarily competing with Zoom. Among other things, with scheduling and improved sound and picture quality. The new Facetime app is supposed to deliver a bit of a digital campfire. With the help of the app, you will be able to listen to music and watch videos together in the future without interrupting the chat. It should be possible to watch programs together with friends. Ambient noises should be better suppressed in the chat app. There will also be a portrait mode that blurs the background.

More control and more data protection as an issue

The second big innovation on Apple’s smartphones concerns the notification functions. They give users more control over how and when they want to be disturbed or undisturbed. “There are new features with which you can adapt the notifications to different activities. For example, while you are working or want to be undisturbed,” says analyst Gurman. Data protection and privacy have been playing an increasingly important role at Apple for the past three years. The Californian company is trying to sharpen its profile in order to differentiate itself more strongly from its competitor Google and its Android system. So-called tracking pixels are now blocked in the Group’s mail app. Advertisers and marketing people are likely to be annoyed with Apple again. You can no longer check whether and where an e-mail has been opened.

On April 15, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that it would impose administrative penalties on Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical”) for implementing a monopoly agreement, with a total fine of 764 million yuan.

According to investigations, from 2015 to 2019, Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals reached a fixed agreement with downstream companies such as drug wholesalers and retail pharmacies by signing cooperation agreements, issuing price adjustment letters, and oral notices across the country (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions). The agreement on drug resale prices and the minimum resale price of drugs, and measures such as formulating implementation rules, strengthening assessment and supervision, penalizing low-price sales dealers, and entrusting intermediary agencies to monitor online drug prices to ensure the implementation of the agreement.

The State Administration of Market Supervision stated that the above-mentioned actions of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group ruled out and restricted competition, harmed the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and the public interest, and violated the relevant provisions of the Anti-Monopoly Law.

It takes pains to limit the price of medicines, and consumers will pay for it in the end

Specifically, Yangzi Pharmaceutical restricts the prices of drugs sold in retail pharmacies and distributors, including many best-selling products such as Lanqin Oral Liquid, Bailemian Capsules, and Astragalus Extract. These drugs are well-known and popular in people’s lives. Measured by sales revenue in 2019, Lanqin Oral Liquid ranked first in throat drugs, Astragalus extract ranked third in tonic drugs, and Bailemian Capsules ranked fourth in stabilized sleep drugs. These best-selling drugs are precisely the focus of Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical’s focus on price-fixing.

In order to supervise the sales staff and distributors to strictly implement the fixed and limited price policy, Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical has taken great pains. Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical has formulated a detailed price control system and dispatched sales personnel from various places to pharmacies to inspect and secretly visit drug prices. For drugs on Taobao, Tmall, and JD online platforms, Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical has hired a third-party intermediary company to supervise five key drugs (Lanqin Oral Liquid, Bailemian Capsules, Astragalus Extract, Epalrestat Tablets, Suhuang Cough tablets) online retail prices, and regularly submit online merchants’ price information monitoring and processing results to Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical.

If distributors at all levels, retail pharmacies, etc. do not comply, Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical will implement penalties such as deduction of bonuses, internal fines, out of stock, and suspension of reimbursement. At the same time, distributors and retail pharmacies have a certain degree of dependence on these best-selling products, and they have insufficient bargaining power for the fixed and limited price behavior of Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical.

Yang Zijiang Pharmaceutical’s fixed and limited price behavior seems to be divided from the interests of distributors and pharmacies at all levels, but in fact it raises the price of medicines, and consumers eventually pay for it. The economic analysis takes Shanghai as a sample and simulates the competitive retail prices of some drugs from Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical in 2018 and 2019, and compares them with the actual retail prices and hospital purchase prices in the same period. The results show that this behavior has caused significant drug prices. rise. Statistical analysis shows that the retail channel ex-factory price of Lanqin oral liquid (10ml*6 bottles) from 2015 to 2019 and the average terminal retail price from 2018 to 2020 have shown an upward trend year by year.

However, patients always follow the doctor’s advice or follow the pharmacist’s recommendation when purchasing medicines, so they are not sensitive to the price of medicines and often lose their interests without knowing it.

Anti-monopoly incidents occur frequently in the pharmaceutical field, and national law enforcement and supervision continue to be stricter

Due to the particularity of the pharmaceutical industry, it is difficult to form sufficient market competition from the production and supply of raw materials, the production of pharmaceutical companies and the marketing of pharmaceuticals. A small number of manufacturing companies control the production and supply of APIs. These companies take advantage of market dominance to obtain price dominance, and thus may form a monopoly. At the same time, the current pharmaceutical industry has formed a highly concentrated market pattern, and many pharmaceutical companies secretly manipulate market prices through monopoly agreements, leading to price increases or shortages of drugs.

Fortunately, in recent years, the anti-monopoly law enforcement supervision in the pharmaceutical field has continued to tighten, and news that pharmaceutical companies have been punished due to monopoly has been reported frequently in the industry. In April 2020, the State Administration of Market Supervision imposed administrative penalties on three calcium gluconate API distributors, Shandong Kanghui Pharmaceutical, Weifang Taiyangshen Pharmaceutical, and Weifang Puyunhui Pharmaceutical, for their monopolistic activities, with a total fine of 325.5 million yuan. In January 2021, Simcere Pharmaceutical abused its dominant position in the sales market of China’s Batroxobin concentrate API, and refused to conduct transactions with counterparties without justifiable reasons, ruled out market competition, and was fined 100.7 million yuan. Yuan Renminbi. In April of the same year, Tianyao Co., Ltd. divided the sales market of fluocinolone acetate raw materials in the form of agreement, and changed and fixed the price of fluocinolone acetate raw materials to eliminate competition that restricted the sales of fluocinolone acetate raw materials, and was fined 44,022,600 yuan. .

At the same time, the state has successively introduced a series of measures to strengthen supervision and increase penalties. In 2017, my country issued the “Guidelines for the Price Behavior of Short Drugs and API Operators”, which became the first price monopoly guide for the pharmaceutical industry since the implementation of China’s anti-monopoly law. Subsequently, the “Opinions on Further Doing a Good Job in Maintaining Supply and Stabilizing Prices of Drugs in Shortage”, “Antitrust Guidelines in the Field of APIs (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)”, etc. In January of this year, the China Chemical Pharmaceutical Industry Association (CPIA) released the latest “Regulations for Compliance Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry”, with anti-monopoly being the focus of it.

It is reported that Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical, which was heavily fined this time, is a leading domestic pharmaceutical company. The “2019 China Pharmaceutical Industry Top 100 List” released by the China Pharmaceutical Industry Information Center shows that Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical ranked first in China’s top 100 pharmaceutical industry that year. Has been ranked first for 6 consecutive years. It is foreseeable that heavy penalties for industry leaders will have a huge deterrent effect on industry monopoly behavior.

It is worth mentioning that, according to Jiemian News, Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals previously reported to the court that four companies, Guangzhou Hairui Pharmaceuticals, Hefei Medical Engineering and Pharmaceuticals, Hefei Enruit Pharmaceuticals, and Nanjing Haichen Pharmaceuticals, were suspected of monopoly of APIs. Prosecute. In April 2020, the first instance of the case was concluded, and Yangzijiang Pharmaceutical was awarded nearly 70 million in compensation. And a year later, Yangtze River Pharmaceutical lost more than ten times the money it had earned by suing others for its monopoly because of its own monopoly.