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 Taiwan has launched the National Health Insurance (NHI) program in 1995 and all the nationals can enjoy basic medical care ever since then. Therefore, this is a very important milestone for Taiwan toward a welfare state.
In Taiwan, for the public who enroll in national health insurance program, the NHI card is the identification for visiting a medical facility. There are three major evolutions of the NHI card ever since its first appearance in 1995; thereafter, we are going to use the three stages of format evolution of this card to share with our foreign friends about the history of change of the national health insurance card here in Taiwan.
Stage 1~ Innovative national health insurance paper card
On March 1, 1995, the NHI was launched and a better social security net was then constructed in Taiwan. A card is used as a certificate for visiting a medical facility and each card can be used for six times.
In the mean time, in order to provide more service sites for card renewal as needed by the public, 68 card-service sites were available for the central Taiwan area so as to enhance the accessibility and convenience of card-renewal need; furthermore, a lot of efforts were put into the computerization of the card-service site, for example, the card could be printed through computer to make a card-renewal process easier.
Stage 2~ 921 Earthquake-comforting card with unlimited care
On the morning of September 21, 1999, an earthquake about 7.3 in the Richter scale occurred in Taiwan, with earthquake center in Central Taiwan; the earthquake was a historic event that caused massive injuries in the recent one hundred years; and our branch office happens to be located in the earthquake disaster zone, an earthquake rescue mission was then activated to provide a series of medical services for the victims. Most of our colleagues devoted themselves to providing services to people in the disaster zone.
Meanwhile, a national health insurance service team was organized by our branch office to enter the disaster zone to issue “the 921 earthquake-comforting card”, which was used as a certificate for seeking medical services by people in the disaster zone. Later on, the Department of Health also provided a series of insurance fee exemption policies for the victims .Those helped made the victims recover quickly. And it showed the vigorous side of Taiwan again.
Stage 3~ Technological NHI IC card
“Technologies” is a synonym of Taiwan. Therefore, national health insurance IC card is a smart card with high technology. It shows Taiwan’s unique and outstanding management on health insurance information. The card helps us to step into a new era of technological national health insurance.
A first meeting for the work force of implementing the NHI IC card was held on December 10, 2001 by our branch office; at that time, a successful seed was sent to the ground for the future. On July 01, 2003, a two-track and gradual implementation plan was formally launched in the hospital higher than that the district level, which is a warming up of its formal start .
On January 01, 2004, the NHI IC card was launched to a full scale and a milestone of e-era management of national health insurance was shown to the world. Smart NHI IC card, in addition to replacing the function of the paper card, also provides multi-element “health added value” services. Furthermore, the concept of “stored your health” was used to record smart value-added items such as the medical history and preventive health management, etc; this card helps to connect many health elements and it has ushered the management of NHI certificate into a new e-era.
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