Small-sized hospitals are plagued by touts who buy medicines at very low prices from patients with medical insurance, sell them and pocket the difference, the Beijing Evening News reported.

Some dealers even rent patients' medical insurance card to directly purchase medicines from the hospital. Websites are often set up as the final step in this medicine-recycling business. Most of the medicines are either sold online or to smaller unlicensed drugstores. Such illegal websites were banned in 2011.