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Updated Saturday, October 3, 2009 11:12 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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The fleecing of Taiwan's national medical system

In the wake of the controversy, health authorities have said that from now on, how hospitals deliver the findings of medical checkups to patients will form part of the annual evaluation of the hospitals.

It has been pointed out that hospitals can simply telephone patients to tell them they are healthy. Or there should be a window at the hospitals to receive patients' telephone inquiries about their checkup findings. This will save the patients from having to pay a second visit and pay extra fees.

The controversy has also highlighted some fundamental issues with Taiwan's medical services, its National Health Insurance program and the relationships between doctors and patients.

For the medical institutions and the financially troubled NHI program, playing tricks and preventing them are part and parcel of a survival game. The NHI has been trying to revise payment schemes so as to reduce its losses and prevent itself from going bankrupt.

Another way for the NHI program to survive is of course to raise premiums. Hospitals, receiving tighter support from the NHI, are striving to increase their revenues.

So, apart from extra registration fees for unnecessary visits, patients may have to pay exorbitant sums that could amount to NT$2,000 for a copy of their medical history, according to activists pushing for reform of the medical sector.

The survival game between the hospitals and doctors on one side and the NHI and government on the other has been played at the expense of patients and ordinary people who are depending on them for their lives.

Such financial issues are distorting the relationships between doctors and patients. When doctors go as far as to play “little tricks” on patients in order to boost their incomes and performance, we need to ask one fundamental questions: Can we really trust the doctors on whom our lives depend? Are the doctors also giving us unnecessary, expensive treatments?

The NHI is supposed to be playing a watchdog role on medical treatments that it is paying for, and we do hope its monitoring system works. But isn't it also necessary that doctors and hospitals should act to win back our trust that they are honest?

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