Reported by Wei Hsin-Hsin
From July, when visiting big hospitals for treatments, patients might be confronted by their doctors with the suggestion of a referral to clinics. This is due to the NHIA’s policy of supporting graded healthcare. The NHIA has requested regional hospitals and medical centers to cut outpatient service volume by 2% every year and to reach the target of a 10% overall reduction rate in 5 years. Hospitals failing to achieve this target will face a cut in NHI reimbursement.
Hospitals have mixed responses to this new measure. There are doubts about the effectiveness of this measure. Some reckon that hospitals would not comply with this policy because there are still financial incentives as the revenues are greater than the penalties. As for patients, they may as well reject the suggestion of a referral due to concerns over the treatment quality in clinics.
The Taiwan Health Reform Foundation pointed out that the NHIA set a target without specifying which patient categories should be firstly referred to clinics. The Foundation, therefore, suggested that the NHIA should revise the policy and publish the reduction rate of each hospital so as to keep the information transparent and to protect patients’ rights.
People in Taiwan prefer big hospitals to clinics for treatments. This habit has put great pressure on big hospitals. The NHIA has implemented various measures in the past few years, including increasing the co-payment for big hospitals, reducing charges on referral cases, etc. However, the results are not quite satisfying. The refusal to NHI reimbursement is the NHIA’s last resort.
The public are concerned about whether their rights would be affected by referral. The NHIA expressed that this measure targets on hospitals instead of patients. Hospitals are expected to comply with the policy in order to avoid penalties. The NHIA also gives 500 and 250 service points respectively to each hospital and clinic for participating in referral. However, patients still have the final say. It is up to the patients to decide.
【2018-07-02/ United Daily New】
