Research Article Use of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Its Impact on Medical Cost among Urban Ischemic Stroke Inpatients in China: A National Cross-Sectional Study Zhengwei Huang , 1 Xuefeng Shi , 1,2 Stephen Nicholas , 3,4,5,6 Elizabeth Maitland , 7 YongYang , 8 Weihan Zhao , 1 YongMa, 9 andYanJiang 1 1 School of Management, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China 2 National Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine Strategy and Development, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China 3 Australian National Institute of Management and Commerce, Eveleigh Sydney, NSW 2015, Australia 4 School of Economics and School of Management, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China 5 Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China 6 Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia 7 School of Management, University of Liverpool, Chatham Building, Chatham Street, Liverpool L697ZH, UK 8 Medical Device Regulatory Research and Evaluation Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China 9 China Health Insurance Research Association, Beijing, China Correspondence should be addressed to Yan Jiang; jy_ftn@163.com Received 13 August 2021; Accepted 12 October 2021; Published 29 October 2021 Academic Editor: Harry Lee Copyright © 2021 Zhengwei Huang et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has long been widely adopted by the Chinese people and has been covered by China’s basic medical insurance schemes to treat ischemic stroke. Previous research has mainly highlighted the therapy effect of TCM on ischemic stroke patients. Some studies have demonstrated that employing TCM can reduce the medical burden on other diseases. But no research has explored whether using TCM could reduce inpatient medical cost for ischemic stroke in mainland China. e purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the use of TCM on the total inpatient cost of ischemic stroke and to explore whether TCM has played the role of being complementary to, or an alternative for, conventional medicine to treat ischemic stroke. Methods. We conducted a national cross-sectional analysis based on a 5% random sample from claims data of China Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI) and Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) schemes in 2015. Mann–Whitney test was used to compare unadjusted total inpatient cost, conventional medication cost, and nonpharmacy cost estimates. Ordinary least square regression analysis was performed to compare demographics-adjusted total inpatient cost and to examine the association between TCM cost and conventional medication cost. Results. A total of 47321 urban inpatients diagnosed with ischemic stroke were identified in our study, with 92.6% (43843) of the patients using TCM in their inpatient treatment. Total inpatient cost for TCM users was significantly higher than TCM nonusers (USD 1217 versus USD 1036, P < 0.001). Conventional medication cost was significantly lower for TCM users (USD 335 versus USD 436, P < 0.001). e average cost of TCM per patient among TCM users was USD 289. Among TCM users, conventional medication costs were found to be positively associated with TCM cost after adjusting for confounding factors (Coef. � 0.144, P < 0.001). Conclusion. Although the use of TCM reduced the cost of conventional medicine compared with TCM nonusers, TCM imposed an extra financial component on the total inpatient cost on TCM users. Our study suggests that TCM mainly played a complementary role to conventional medicine in ischemic stroke treatment in mainland China. Hindawi Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2021, Article ID 8554829, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8554829