Introduction:

It is natural that sickness can call on us at anytime and anywhere.  And sometimes, it comes outside our comfort zones when we may not have the funds to attend to the illness as it comes. Often times when we do have the money, the illness may end up taking all the monies you have been saving over a long time. Moreover, the rising cost of medical attention is equally worrisome. This is the reason behind medical insurance. And in this article, we shall be discussing Taiwan medical insurance.

In Taiwan, Medical insurances are adopted by the people to take care of the issues associated with medi-care and medical bills. They subscribe to medical insurance plans and in times when they are sick, the insurance company will step in to take care of or pay the medical bills incurred in the course of the treatment.

NATURE OF MEDICAL INSURANCE IN TAIWAN

The Taiwanese government in the year 1995 adopted a National Health Insurance system.  However and before this time, there was existence of some insurance plans in health and other sectors offering insurance coverage to about 60% of the populace. Medical insurance in Taiwan has a feature of accessibility, total population health coverage, short waiting times, low rates and a good national information collection system to enable research and planning.

Like we said earlier, Taiwan adopted a state wide medical insurance system in 1995. However, apart from the state provided medical insurance system, there were also independent health insurance companies operating insurance business in Taiwan. One of the negative sides of the independent practitioners was that there was high level of payment from patients out of their pockets. And because of this, the national health insurance in Taiwan merged all the independent small insurance schemes into the single national insurance system. The primary objective of the national insurance system was to improve the health system in Taiwan and also to improve the efficiency of social justice by   increasing health care coverage in Taiwan.

The source of the revenue used in powering the health care system in Taiwan includes the government, the employers and the employees. To access the health system in Taiwan, every citizen has a national health insurance integrated circuit card (NHI IC Card). The card is used to identify the bearer, keep medical history of the bearer and also to bill the national insurer. To access health care, the citizen will have to present the card to the health provider and the hospital will use the information to claim payment form the Taiwan government through a claims process which is very rapid

 TYPES OF MEDICAL INSURANCE

Just like different people have different medical insurance needs, so do we have different types of insurance policy to take care of these numerous medical needs. This is more because a single medical insurance policy may not be able to cover an individual’s needs medically. Some of these types of medical insurance are;

1. Critical illness medical insurance
2. Individual medical insurance
3. Group medical insurance
4. Family medical insurance
5. Senior citizens medical insurance

Benefits

There are several benefits with buying Taiwan medical insurance policy, some of these benefits includes but not limited to;

1. High coverage rates
2. Low cost
3. Short waiting times
4. Comprehensive coverage
5. Good accessibility
6. Nationwide data bank for research and planning.
7. Critical illness cover
8. Helps to ameliorate the high cost of medical care.
9. Peace of mind: having a medical insurance policy in Taiwan affords the policyholder maximum peace of mind.