In the News

Health system to punish dishonest doctors

• Publication Date：03/12/2010
• Source： United Daily News

The Bureau of National Health Insurance announced March 12 new measures designed to prevent hospitals and individuals from misusing the National Health System.

According to the measures, any hospital or clinic found to have bilked the NHS more than once will be prohibited from ever participating in the NHS again.

The new policy also stipulates that patients who use NHS services more than 100 times per year will be forced to seek future treatments only at certain designated hospitals.

Cheng Shou-hsia, director-general of the BNHI, said at the moment the strictest penalty that can be imposed on hospitals or clinics that have made fraudulent claims for services not rendered is to force them out of the system for one year.

The punishments meted out by the system are thus far more severe than before, and in fact are the strictest in the history of the NHS.

Before the new policy is implemented, the bureau will make the new “rules of the game” clearly understood by all those involved, Cheng said.

Some of the fraudulent cases involve elderly doctors who do not actually see patients in person, but allow unlicensed physicians to do so in their name. These doctors then go on to claim fees for these services.

To prevent patients visiting the doctor too frequently, the BNHI will inform patients that taking too many types of medications is not only a waste of resources, but also potentially harmful to one’s health. Patients with chronic illnesses should also form the habit of bringing to their doctors a list of all prescriptions they are currently given.

Cheng noted that 60 percent of the public thinks there has been a waste of medical resources. Sometimes patients do not finish their courses of treatment, or they visit doctors for the purpose of receiving more pills.

For these reasons, starting at the end of last year the NHS has been encouraging hospitals to open up comprehensive care centers, which allow chronically-ill patients to receive one-stop treatment for a variety of ailments from a variety of specialists. At the moment 190 hospitals have agreed to open up such centers, and “adopted” more than 600,000 patients.

If medical resources are not conserved, no matter how many premium increases there are, it will not be enough to cover costs, said Cheng. Thus the NHS wants to discourage patients from unnecessary hospital visits.

Approximately 35,000 patients visit the doctor more than 100 times per year, according to Tsai Shu-ling, head of the Medical Affairs Section of the BNHI. The bureau will try to educate these patients on the importance of not visiting multiple doctors. If such efforts fail, the patients will be forced to receive treatment only at certain designated hospitals.

When asked what he thought of the idea of punishing dishonest doctors, Chiang Shi-zhong, deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Medical Association, responded: “Our association is in favor of getting rid of the few bad apples among us.” (HZW)