Taiwanese National Health Insurance Card :: Insurance Coverage Taiwan Essays

minute National fountainheadness Insurance Card Taiwanese g everyplacenment has been providing health amends coverage to all its citizens since 1997. Initially, the National Health Insurance Agency managed and tracked citizens medical exam usage via four versions of subject national health insurance card. The health insurance card, the newly born(p) handbook, the pregnancy handbook, and major disease/handicap certificate. Whenever a citizen lambasts health clinic, the visit is recorded on the back of the appropriate ID. When the card is full, the citizen exchange the apply card for a new one at the local anaesthetic NHI office. The NHI alike receive medical records from medical establishments when they file for claims. Starting July 2003, the health insurance agency began its modernization process. It started consolidating four paper versions with the digital version-- a yearn card containing IC chip. By Jan. 1, 2004, the constitutional country was upgraded to the digital N HI card. The remnant of the modernization process is to reduce the NHIs operational overhead so that much resources may be directed toward medical care. It is expected to save over 42 billion NTD or roughly 1.2 USD over the period of 7 years.5 In addition, visits to the health care provider allow for be to a greater extent convenient, as patients no longer need to bring multiple ID/handbooks with them to medical facilities. And there will be no need to visit local NHI office for new ID cards. For health care providers, the digital card provides a electronic infrastructure that allows them to streamline the claim filing process avoiding mistakes. It also allow NHI to provide a more efficient collection apparatus to gather accurate information regarding overall citizens health and disease statistics. scorn its well intention and the ambitious plan, the modernization plan has serious estimable consequences. When the modernization process is completed, the NHI will has the most ex tensive online database of Taiwanese citizens. The database will contain nearly every citizens medical record for his or her entire life. It will also contain the most up to date individual(prenominal) information such as home and work addresses. Because of the extensive nature of the database, if the database is misused, the consequence will be severe. Furthermore, Several human rights advocacy concourse has pointed out the infrastructure is insufficient to protect citizens privacy rights as well as the lack of will on governments side to protect individuals ad hominem information. And there is fear that there is risk that the leaked medical information rout out be used to persecute a specific segment of the population.