• Taiwan Health Insurance Information

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In Taiwan, healthcare is primarily managed by the country's department of health.  Being a developed economy, Taiwan's people in general live a healthy lifestyle and the top health conditions are heart disease and obesity. 

As recent as 2002, the country is reported to have 36 hospitals and 2601 clinics, which equates to approximately 1.6 doctors and 5.9 hospital beds for every 1000 residents.  Total health-related expenses amounted to 5.8% of GDP (gross domestic product) in 2000; that translate to US$752 per capita.  Government was responsible for up to 65% of these expenses.  Average life span in Taiwan is 78 years old in 2009.

 The last epidemic that affected Taiwan was SARS in 2003 but it has since been clear according to World Health Organization (WHO).

 Public healthcare comes in the form of National Health Insurance (NHI) since 1995.  This is the country's mandatory social insurance scheme whereby all residents are required to contribute funds to a central pool -- from which medical expenses can be disbursed.  This system ensures that every citizen has unrestricted access to health care and by the end of 2004, it has successfully covered 99% of population.  This NHI premium is collected through employee payroll taxes as well as direct government funds. 

During its initial implementation, all public and private healthcare providers were required to dispense free services to patients.  However, it was found that private health providers were abusing the delivery mechanism when bills of unusually high number of patients with unnecessary services were presented back to the government. 

To control the spiraling cost, NHI fine-tuned the system from free service to centralize insurance pool that pays for individual treatment 2002.

 With all its reputation for first class healthcare system, there are still some imperfections in Taiwan.  While the universal healthcare is effective in terms of citizenship coverage, it is largely a loss-making venture that is dependent on loans from commercial banks.  The loan arrangement is pre-determined so sometimes it may not be in sync with the country's income. 

Additionally, only patients are in charge of the national insurance premiums and they are averse to increasing premiums because of the electorate consideration.  The adaptation of technology is still relatively slow except in the area of pharmaceutical.

 For a developed country, the ratio of doctor-to-population is still unsatisfactory as there is still a need to significantly boost up the doctors number.  As a result of this, most doctors are compelled to cut down the consulting time to about 2 1/2 minute per patient.  The country is also short of a system to regularly monitor clinical performance, patient outcomes and adverse events.

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