The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday that starting next month, the maximum amount hospitals and clinics can charge patients for registration fees for a doctor’s appointment is NT$150.
The department also set the cap for registration fees for emergency hospital visits at NT$300.
However, as there are no laws governing how much hospitals can charge for registration fees, the DOH can only advise hospitals on what would be a reasonable amount rather than issuing fines to institutions that do not comply, Bureau of Medical Affairs Director Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said.
The issue of large discrepancies between hospitals’ registration fees surfaced two months ago, when the Bureau of National Health Insurance asked medical institutions nationwide to provide information on registration fees.
The results showed that although most hospitals and clinics charged patients between NT$100 and NT$150 for a doctor’s appointment, some hospitals, such as the Chung Shan Hospital off Renai Road in Taipei, charged up to NT$300 for regular visits and NT$450 for emergency visits.
Conversely, small clinics in rural parts in southern Taiwan charged as little as NT$20 to NT$30 for an appointment.
The large discrepancy was attributed to various factors that influence the hospitals’ finances, such as the cost of living in the area and hospital expenses such as salaries and rent, the DOH said.
Shih said that even though authorities did not have the legal power to issue fines to hospitals that charge unreasonably expensive registration fees, the DOH can pressure them to comply by publicizing on the DOH Web site the names and addresses of hospitals that charge exorbitant fees.
“Currently, only about 20 [hospitals and clinics] do not meet the requirements,” Shih said.
“We will continue to supervise and evaluate the hospitals. If they do not make improvements, we will publicize their names,” Shih added.
The DOH also called on the public to let it know if they find hospitals charging registration fees above the maximum amount set by authorities.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods