DOH to change medical fund policy

The Department of Health (DOH) is planning to abolish its new system of funding medical care by way of fixed hospital budgets in favor of individual patient accounts, according to Health Insurance Section Deputy Convener Dai Kuei-ying (戴桂英) yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference called by KMT Legislator Chang Tsai-mei (張蔡美) Dai said, "Once the new amendment is done, everybody will have a budget account for his health insurance, but hospitals will not have the limited budget they have now. So patients can apply for the proper budget amount and use it according to their needs."

Dai made the remark in response to an allegation by Chang that since the current policy came into effect on July 1, hospitals have been forced by budgetary pressures to prevent patients from receiving treatment by limiting the numbers of patients entitled to treatment on a daily basis.

The DOH's policy stipulates that each hospital will receive a limited monthly budget for all medical treatment costs. Each hospital receives a different budget amount due to its size, total amount of patients, etc.

"In the past, there wasn't a limited budget for hospitals or patients," said Liu Chien-hsiang (劉見祥), the deputy general manger of the Bureau of National Health Insurance (中央健保局). "As a result, most people were used to going to big hospitals no matter how sick they were."

"For example, a lot of patients would go to the hospital with the highest number of doctors and the best medical equipment when they only had the flu," he added. "This new policy will hopefully prevent this kind of behavior."

According to a story in a Chinese-language newspaper on Tuesday, a female patient who was undergoing treatment for depression attempted suicide by jumping out of of a tall building because she was unable to register her name on the limited amount of daily patients at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (長庚醫院). The story implied that the woman attempted to kill herself because of the new policy.

According to the story, she survived the jump and was sent to a hospital immediately. However, the article did not clearly say where the woman tried to commit suicide and where she is currently hospitalized.

In response to questions about the date, time and location of the incident, Chang said she had no further details.

An unnamed official from the public relations department of the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital told a televised press conference on Tuesday that the hospital began to limit the total amount of daily patients at the end of June to maintain the quality of its medical treatment under its limited budget.

But he said that the hospital had not turned any patients away and that its policy had nothing to do with the the DOH's policy, which began on July 1.

"If this [the new hospital funding policy] is the reason why the woman tried to kill herself, shouldn't these medical professionals be ashamed?" she said.