By Lee Po-chang

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the typically overlooked community pharmacies have shone throughout ongoing efforts at containing the spread of the infectious disease. The pharmacies have not only played an integral role in the distribution of face masks but also demonstrated their friendliness and professionalism to the communities they serve, paving the way for the implementation of the separation of prescribing from dispensing of drugs.

Amid the once-in-a-century pandemic, many have grown wary of hospital acquired infections, leading to immediate reduction in the number of outpatient visits. Data from the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) show that compared to the previous year, between January and June, total outpatient visits decreased by 8.1 percent, among which hospitals saw a 7.1 percent year-on-year decline, with Western medicine clinics, dental clinics and traditional Chinese medicine clinics seeing annual declines of 10.7 percent, 4.8 percent and 0.9 percent respectively. Disenrollment data from the NHIA also show that the number of deaths between January and June of 2020 was 1.49 percent lower compared to the previous year, indicating that Taiwan’s overall mortality rate did not increase due to the lowered number of outpatient visits.

This outcome brings up the question that while people in Taiwan have been averaging as many as 14 to 15 outpatient visits each year, how many of those visits were necessary. If a portion of the public can recover healthily through selfcare and adjustments in lifestyle and diet, in conjunction with public health education efforts by frontline medical professionals, a considerable amount of medical resources could be saved.

NHIA data show that coinciding with the considerable declines in number of outpatient visits during the first and second quarters, the value of medical points for dental clinics, Western medicine clinics and hospitals have risen to above NT$1 per point based on estimates for April and May. This presents an ideal opportunity for the reassessment of the medical points system based on changing treatment-seeking behavior among the public. Under threat of the pandemic, signs indicating that people have been refraining from making unnecessary hospital visits have begun appearing. We hope that the public’s treatment-seeking behavior will be turning for the better.

(The author serves as Director General of the National Health Insurance Administration)

[2020-08-16 / Liberty Times]