Shanghai maternity hospital to accept bill payment via Alipay

Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital today became the first hospital in Shanghai to accept patients' bills through Alipay's smartphone application, as the payment company steps up efforts to expand into offline sectors.

Patients from local and other neighboring provinces can connect their social security accounts or medical insurance accounts with Alipay to collect their medical reports and detailed payment lists.

The registration system will share the same infrastructure with the hospital's online and offline registration platform.

Additionally, consumers can pick up their medical reports when the notification is sent to their mobile phones.

Several hundreds of patients made appointments in the morning and paid their medical bills through Alipay, hospital officials said.

Zhang Jiangang, general manager of the Offline to Online unit at Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Service Firm, said that Alipay aims to join hands with at least 150 domestic hospitals to allow more convenient payment and registration for patients.

Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital's two other branches in the city will also join the program in the near future to cover more patients.