The nation’s aging population has led to a growing number of people with chronic diseases and, as a result, a higher need for new medical and pharmaceutical technologies.
Higher premiums might be inevitable due to increasing expenses, as the National Health Insurance (NHI) reserve fund is expected to run out by 2021 at the latest.
Considering the nation’s economic and political situation, and knowing that increasing NHI funding is difficult, the best solution is to cut unnecessary expenses.
According to statistics from last year, Western medicine prescribed by outpatient departments and clinics is the program’s primary expense, accounting for 34.8 percent of all NHI expenditures. This is followed by checkups, which account for 15.5 percent.
To reform the program, the government must first reallocate healthcare resources.
Late last year, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) expanded its “cloud medical history system” and renamed it the “medical treatment cloud database.”
The system is designed to help doctors better understand their patients’ medical history, including prescribed medicines and checkups.
The government last year took measures to prevent repeat prescriptions by different doctors of commonly used drugs — such as those for hypertension, hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia — as well as hypnotics and sedatives. This not only reduced the health risks brought about by drug interactions, but also lowered medical costs by NT$130 million (US$4.31 million) per year.
In addition, the NHIA is asking hospitals to upload patients’ test results — including blood tests, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging results — to the cloud.
The agency is working with Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taichung Veterans’ General Hospital, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital and Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital to check and sort images, and test the cloud system.
The goal is to enable all levels of the healthcare system to share information through the cloud, prevent additional expenses caused by unnecessary checkups or exams and build an effective referral system.
Without a beginning, there will be no chance for change. Hopefully more information on a person’s medical history would help them develop a closer relationship with their doctors. People are also encouraged to volunteer information about their recent checkups.
Only when healthcare professionals, members of the public and the NHIA work together can unnecessary medical expenses be prevented. This is essential for the sustainability of the NHI program.
Lee Po-chang is director-general of the National Health Insurance Administration.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
When Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) wakes up one morning and decides that his People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can win a war to conquer Taiwan, that is when his war will begin. To ensure that Xi never gains that confidence it is now necessary for the United States to shed any notions of “forbearance” in arms sales to Taiwan. Largely because they could guarantee military superiority on the Taiwan Strait, US administrations from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama practiced “forbearance” — pre-emptive limitation of arms sales to Taiwan — in hopes of gaining diplomatic leverage with Beijing. President Ronald
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) talked about “opposing the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in a recent Facebook post, writing that opposing the CCP is not the special reserve of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Not long after, many people within the KMT received a mysterious letter signed “Chinese Nationalist Party Central Committee” containing what looked like a declaration of opposition to, and a call to arms against, the CCP. Unexpectedly, the KMT’s Culture and Communications Committee came forward with a clarification, saying that the letter was not sent by the KMT and telling the public not to believe
While China’s abrupt ban on imports of pineapples from Taiwan is malicious, it is a problem that the government can manage. However, the ban’s real aim might be to test Taiwan’s status in the eyes of US President Joe Biden’s administration. Beijing cited biosecurity as the reason for its ban, which is to start tomorrow, an untenable assertion, as 99.79 percent of Taiwan’s pineapples exported to China since last year passed customs tests. The timing is intriguing. The ban was announced just before harvesting is to begin; after Biden ordered a review of supply chains of chips and other strategic materials; and
Australia’s decades-long battle to acquire a new French-designed attack submarine to replace its aging Collins class fleet bears all the hallmarks of a bureaucratic boondoggle. The Attack-class submarine project, initially estimated to cost A$20 billion to A$25 billion (US$15.6 billion to US$19.5 billion at the current exchange rate), had by 2016 doubled to A$50 billion, and almost doubled again to A$90 billion by February last year. Because of delays, the French-led Naval Group consortium would not begin cutting steel on the first submarine until 2024, which means the first vessel would not be operational until after 2030 — and the last
RSS