By National Health Insurance Administration Director General Lee Po-chang
National Health Insurance (NHI) data shows that in 2021, diagnostic tests and drug prescriptions accounted for 42 percent of overall expenditures, with spending seeing continued growth each year. At the same time, compensation for medical services including surgery and anesthesia as well as outpatient consultation accounted for 35 percent and 17 percent of expenditures respectively, with spending seeing continued annual decline, indicating that the hard work of medical professionals is not being fairly compensated. It also brings to question whether patients truly benefit from rising spending on medical exams and drug prescriptions.
Regarding drug prescriptions, a survey by the Consumers’ Foundation and the Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists Associations in 2019 found that around 193 tons, or 500 million pills of drugs are thrown away unused by patients each year, including expensive targeted therapy drugs. If left unchecked and without sound policy changes, such wastage of medical resources will continue to worsen the working environment for medical professionals and continue to hinder the inclusion of new cancer and orphan drugs on the NHI fee schedule.
Although the planned copayment adjustments will only provide an additional NT$9.99 billion in NHI revenues each year, it is hoped that the change will bring lasting changes to the public’s health care seeking habits and prompt people to cut down on unnecessary medical consultations. Estimates show that if each person cut down just one unnecessary medical consultation each year, 37.8 billion medical points can be saved each year. The savings can be increased exponentially if two or three medical consultations can be avoided each year, providing substantial funding for direly needed new drugs and new therapies. It is hoped that a butterfly effect can take hold to allow for more efficient use of limited medical resources to benefit patients who are in need and allow the NHI to return to its original spirit of helping oneself and others.
[2022-10-09/United Daily News]
