Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) yesterday said the ministry is working to double diagnostic and treatment fees for pediatricians from the current rate. The new rates could come into effect in the summer at the earliest.
Shih made the remark when speaking at the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Department of Pediatrics’ 120th Anniversary Symposium and NTU Children’s Hospital’s Advancing Health Taiwan Forum.
Shih said Taiwan’s birthrate has continued to decline, causing a significant impact to pediatric departments and new physicians’ willingness to choose pediatrics as their medical specialty.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
The government is responsible for creating a friendlier environment for raising children and providing them with adequate healthcare, therefore the ministry is pushing to establish a dedicated “Administration for Children and Family Support,” which is being discussed at the Legislative Yuan, and hopefully can be passed and formally established by Children’s Day next year, Shih said.
Addressing pediatricians’ concerns that new doctors are unwilling to take up the field of pediatrics, Shih said, in addition to the increase in child delivery fees, the ministry’s National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) is undergoing an inventory check of pediatric services and would also adjust their payments soon, so that pediatricians do not feel “relatively deprived.”
NTUH superintendent Yu Chung-jen (余忠仁) said although there are fewer children, pediatric services are still needed and have become more refined, so instead of paying for volume, “pay for value” should be realized.
NTUH Children’s Hospital superintendent Lee Wang-tso (李旺祚) said pediatricians often spend much more time making a diagnosis and explaining a child’s condition to their family members compared with adult patients.
Speaking to reporters, Shih said the total amount of National Health Insurance budget allocated for pediatric services has been secured this year, and that their payments would not be reduced, but head towards a “pay for value” model.
Increasing the payments for pediatricians would include adjusting “inpatient diagnostic fees” and “fees for diagnosis and treatment items by pediatric specialists,” he said.
It is more time-consuming and challenging to diagnose and treat children’s illnesses, so the diagnostic fees should be twice the current rate, to reflect the different medical services pediatricians provide, Shih explained.
Moreover, some pediatricians working at hospitals are currently receiving lower diagnostic fees than their counterparts in primary clinics, so the adjustment must also address this problem to retain pediatricians at hospitals, he said.
However, for some diagnosis and treatment items that are not only provided by pediatricians, such as the flu, the payment would not be increased, he added.
Shih said while the NHIA continues to make inventory, the proposed adjustment methods would be discussed in the next Joint Committee Meeting for Medical Service Benefit and Reimbursement Schedule in June, and they could take effect in July or August at the earliest.
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