OBJECTIVES: As the pioneer for integrated care for health system, Xiamen city has harvested its own successes in chronic diseases management, especially in Hypertension. The government needs more soundable evidences to scale up the integrated care for health system in national wide. This research aims to generalize the required funds and human resources and estimate the possible cost-saving from the base case in Xiamen for guide government’s decision-marking.

METHODS: A micro-costing study is conducted to collect data on resources. Administrative databases were extracted. Surveys, interviews and workshops were performed and all publically available reports were identified. Three scenarios were analyzed to depict the budget impact (BI), under referral schemes at 30%, 70%, 100%, of the integrated care in hypertension with views of patients and payers.

RESULTS: Approximately 21.97 millions of hypertension patients need to be transfer to primary health institution instead; it may require additional 62,415 general practitioners (GPs). In Xiamen’s health service model for integrated care of hypertension, the management cost per person is 2,751.24 RMB/ year. By scenario mapping with referral rate at 30%, 70%, 100% to the primary health institutions, the estimated health insurances expenditure will be 11,440 million, 26,690 million, and 38,130 million per year, with financial reimbursement for 15,840 million, 36,970 million and 52,810 million per year, which may save 12,480 million, 29,120 million and 41,600 million, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: The biggest challenges for implementation of integrated care of hypertension programme at national level are lacking of GPs, followed by the certain amount of funding. While health insurance funds can be compensated by saving generated by integrate care programme illustrated above. It highly recommended the government should level up the reimbursement rate for health insurance and give more incentives to the providers within the integrated care for health system.