Taiwan's National Health Insurance at the Emergency Department following the COVID‐19 outbreak

• Published in: Public health Nursing Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 517 - 527
• Main Authors: Lin, Pei‐Ying, Kaplan, Warren, Lin, Chia‐Hung, Lee, Yen‐Han
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.07.2023
• Subjects: COVID-19; emergency department; Emergency medical care; Emergency medical services; Health care; Health insurance; Health services utilization; healthcare utilization; Insurance; Medical personnel; National Health Insurance; Outbreaks; Policy analysis; Primary care; Taiwan; Turnover rate; policy analysis; National Health Insurance; healthcare utilization; emergency department; Taiwan
• ISSN: 0737-1209; 1525-1446
• DOI: 10.1111/phn.13186

Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI) is a widely acclaimed universal healthcare system. In the past few years, particularly following the COVID‐19 outbreak, challenges related to maintaining the NHI system have surfaced. Since 2020, NHI has faced a series of challenges, including excessive patient visits to the hospital emergency department, a lack of an effective primary care and referral system, and a high turnover rate of healthcare workers. We review major problems related to Taiwan's NHI, emphasizing input from frontline healthcare workers. We provide recommendations for potential policies addressing the concerns around NHI, for example, strengthening the role of primary care services under the NHI administration, reducing the high turnover rate of healthcare workers, and increase the premium and copayments. We hope that this policy analysis may allow policymakers and scholars to understand both the merits and critical problems related to NHI from the clinical perspective.