Table 1.

Attributes and levels of new medical technology in the DCE

Attributes	Levels	Variables coding
Expected gains in health outcomes from the treatment	Not as expected; as expected	Binary
Likelihood of effective treatment	30% to 90%	Continuous
Severity of target disease	Not severe; severe (but not fatal); fatal	Categorical
Incidence of serious adverse events	Often; occasionally; never or rarely	Categorical
Alternative technologies currently covered by insurance	Yes; no	Binary
Out-of-pocket cost per month (if not reimbursed)	CNY 300 to 3500	Continuous

We defined new medical technologies according to research objectives. New medical technologies referred to new technologies that entered into the market recently before our study but were not included in the reimbursement lists of social health insurance schemes, such as URRBMI and UEBMI.

The average exchange rate of US$ to CNY in 2018 was about 6.56. Therefore, CNY 300 was approximately US$46 and CNY 3500 was about US$533.

CNY, Chinese yuan; DCE, discrete choice experiment; UEBMI, Urban Employees Basic Medical Insurance; URRBMI, Urban-Rural Residents Basic Medical Insurance.