By National Health Insurance Administration Director General Lee Po-Chang
On December 14, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) was accorded President Tsai Ying-wen’s “2021 Outstanding Public Servant Contribution Award” and Premier Su Tseng-chang’s “2021 4th Governmental Service Award.” We are proud to be part of the NHIA team.
Regarding the reasonable allocation of National Health Insurance (NHI) resources, President Tsai requested the NHI to propose a ten-year financial plan to address medical reform ideas brought forth by representatives from different hospital associations. Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists Associations (TFPA) President Huang Chin-shun pointed out that drug expenses comprise 28.9 percent of total NHI resources, far exceeding spending at other countries, such as South Korea’s 16.4 percent, Japan’s 16.2 percent, the U.S.’s 12.7 percent, and France’s 11.9 percent. Currently, NHI provides coverage for 10,400 drugs, of which 5,879 drugs are reimbursed at between NT$1.15 to N$5 per pill. While Taiwan has a well-established pharmaceutical industry, the high cost of cancer and rare disease drugs has led to excessive reductions in NHI reimbursement for off-patent drugs. Evidently, there is much room for improvement.
Additionally, telemedicine and at-home medical care help lessen the burden of patients with mobility difficulties. Moreover, as it is arduous for doctors and medical staff to travel to remote villages and outlying islands, better healthcare services are even more dependent on reasonable NHI payments, therefore, increasing the amount of medical points is imperative.
More than anything, we do not want to see the NHI global budget being used for falsified cases, denying the reasonable reimbursement for legitimate cases. Therefore, in the management of NHI, it is important to strengthen the auditing process to uncover false reports, as no increase in global budget will be enough to withstand violations.
[2021-12-19/Liberty Times]
