What's the difference between a medical card and a social security card?

What's the difference between a medical card and a social security card?

Medical card and social security card are both important components of China's social security system, but there are some obvious differences between them.

I. Definition and function

Medical card: Medical card, also known as medical insurance card, is used for medical insurance settlement. Mainly record personal basic medical insurance information and medical expenses settlement.

Social Security Card: A social security card is a card used to handle social insurance business. It covers five major insurances, such as endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, industrial injury insurance and maternity insurance, and has many functions, such as identification, information recording, self-inquiry, medical settlement, payment and treatment collection.

Second, the scope of application

Medical card: Medical card is mainly used in the field of medical insurance, including the settlement of medical expenses such as outpatient service and hospitalization, as well as the purchase of drugs.

Social Security Card: The application scope of social security card is wider, covering all fields of social insurance, such as receiving pension insurance benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, industrial injury insurance benefits, maternity insurance benefits, etc.

Third, the form and security of the card

Medical card: Medical cards are generally magnetic stripe cards, with limited information storage and relatively low security.

Social security card: Social security card adopts chip card technology, which has the characteristics of large amount of stored information, high security, anti-counterfeiting and anti-tampering.

Fourth, cross-regional use

Medical card: the cross-regional use of medical cards is limited, and it is generally necessary to activate and record them at the insured place.

Social security card: Social security card is more convenient to use across regions and is universal in China.

To sum up:

There are obvious differences between medical card and social security card in definition and function, scope of application, card form and security, cross-regional use and so on. Medical cards are mainly used for medical insurance settlement, while social security cards cover all fields of social insurance and have a wider range of applications. At the same time, the social security card adopts chip card technology, which has higher security and anti-counterfeiting performance. Therefore, in actual use, it is necessary to select the appropriate card for processing and use according to the specific situation and needs.

Legal basis:

Article 54 of the Social Insurance Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulates: "The State establishes a national unified personal social security number. The personal social security number is the citizenship number. " Therefore, social security card, as an important certificate of personal social security, has national unity and universality. Medical cards are mainly handled and used in accordance with the medical insurance policies of various regions, and their cross-regional use is limited.