Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has become a common kind of health care in several countries, with increasing demands. This review aimed to appraise the reporting quality of economic evaluations of TCM in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) of China (2020 version), based on the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement.

The reporting quality of included economic evaluations was assessed by two independent reviewers using the CHEERS statement.

A total of 360 articles were retrieved, but only 38 economic evaluations met the inclusion criteria. No articles were compliant with all items of the CHEERS checklist. On average, the included economic evaluations satisfactorily met 10.93 of the CHEERS items (51.31%). The least reported CHEERS checklist items included: “Characterizing heterogeneity”, “Conflicts of interest”, “Discount rate”, and “Study perspective”, with an average score of 0.00, 0.05, 0.08, and 0.16, respectively.

The economic evaluation of TCM is still at an early stage, with an urgent need for improving the reporting quality. To promote the reporting quality of economic evaluations and further development of TCM, multiple measures focusing on reporting formula, policy, training, and new methodology are required.