Healthcare in Taiwan

As with other developed economies, Taiwanese people are well-nourished but face such health problems as chronic obesity and heart disease.

[1] According to the 2023 edition of the CEOWORLD magazine Health Care Index, Taiwan has the best healthcare system in the world.

Of the 110 countries surveyed, Taiwan’s healthcare comes in 1st place on the list, scoring 78.72 out of 100 on the Health Care Index.

[4] The current healthcare system in Taiwan, known as National Health Insurance (NHI, Chinese: 全民健康保險), was instituted in 1995.

The system promises equal access to healthcare for all citizens, and the population coverage had reached 99% by the end of 2004.

[5] NHI is mainly financed through premiums, which are based on the payroll tax, and is supplemented with out-of-pocket payments and direct government funding.

However, many healthcare providers took advantage of the system by offering unnecessary services to a larger number of patients and then billing the government.

The implementation of universal healthcare created fewer health disparities for lower-income citizens in Taiwan.

[8] Although there are many different people to tend to including the disabled, Taiwan has catered to its best ability and also supported more than 23.4 million citizens to provide this universal healthcare.

Healthcare continued to be almost entirely a government concern until the 1970s when a number of Taiwan’s leading industrial groups opened hospitals.

[11] Taiwan started its health reform in the 1980s after experiencing two decades of economic growth, the period often referred to as the Taiwanese Miracle.

[9] That way, Taiwan's citizens are less prone to bankruptcy as a result of medical bills, according to Hongjen Chang, one of the architects of the system.

[18] Under this model, citizens have free range to choose hospitals and physicians without using a gatekeeper and do not have to worry about waiting lists.

This credit-card-size card contains 32 kilobytes of memory that includes provider and patient profiles to identify and reduce insurance fraud, overcharges, duplication of services and tests.

[23] The physician puts the card into a reader and the patient's medical history and prescriptions come up on a computer screen.

Taiwan's single-payer insurer monitors standards, use and quality of treatment for diagnosis by requiring the providers to submit a full report every 24 hours.

At the beginning of 2006, satisfaction decreased to the mid-60 percent range because the program needed more money to cover its services.