Vouchers to be distributed today

Even public and private hospitals around Taiwan have been telling the public that they will accept consumption vouchers from patients as payment for their medical bills beginning today.

Medical institutions had hesitated to accept the vouchers because they are not for-profit enterprises and cannot directly exchange them for cash at local banks.

That resistance collapsed on Friday morning, however, when National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei Veterans General Hospital decided that they would let patients use the vouchers to pay for all medical charges.

A number of hospitals decided to follow suit later in the day, including Mackay Memorial Hospital, Tri-Service General Hospital, all 12 Taipei municipal hospitals, all six Tzu-Chi Buddhist General Hospitals, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and its branches, Veterans General Hospital in Taichung and Kaohsiung, Cathay General Hospital, and Shin Kong Wu Ho Su Memorial Hospital.

Patients must remember, however, that they won't receive change if they use the NT$200 or NT$500 vouchers to pay a bill that is less than the value of the voucher presented, said Wang Chia-wen, chairman of the Taiwan Medical Association.

According to Wang, local clinics are free to decide whether or not to accept the vouchers because they may have trouble converting them to cash.

Though the bigger hospitals cannot cash them at banks, they plan to use the vouchers to buy supplies from pharmaceutical or equipment vendors for the same purpose of spurring economic activities.

At the smaller-scale clinics, physicians may have to spend the collected vouchers on their own personal needs, he noted.

Wang suggested that patients obtain detailed information before planning to use the vouchers at local hospitals or clinics.

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