Medical massages administered by assistants for doctors of Chinese medicine will not be covered by National Health Insurance, the Bureau of National Health Insurance said yesterday.
Doctors must administer the medical massages themselves from the beginning to the end, the bureau said, adding that otherwise the insurance would not pay for the service. It is scheduled to launch a comprehensive inspection in April.
The bureau made the announcement yesterday after it received a number of complaints from patients saying that medical massages were mostly conducted by assistants, rather than the doctors themselves. Some said they had strokes or became paralyzed because of improperly administered medical massages.
The bureau’s division director, Tsai Shu-ling (蔡淑鈴), said it had been customary for doctors to diagnose patients and for assistants to administer medical massages. The practice, she said, is problematic, because many of these assistants are merely apprentices without formal medical education or training.
The practice also puts patients at risk and would eventually eat up the entire insurance system’s resources, she said.
“Without clear definitions, people will simply use health insurance to massage sore muscles, which in turn reduces the insurance resources available for other problems,” she said. “Now, when doctors of Chinese medicine invest NT$1, they can take back NT$0.9, which is way lower than their peers in Western medicine.”
The announcement drew mixed reactions from doctors of Chinese medicine. Some said the policy would stop wasting National Health Insurance funds. Others, however, said it may force some assistants to illegally open their own clinics, which would in turn put public health at risk.
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