Hi,
Can anyone help?
I am looking for comprehensive health insurance while staying in Taiwan. I have been quoted 600 GB pounds (36000 NT) for a year. Does this seem expensive or is this about right for good cover? Can anyone recommend a company?
Cheers,
Chris
I think you’ll want to get the National Health Insurance here, much better service than the NHS, by law you get it with a job. Don’t know how to get it if you’re not working.
cheers mate!
I know i get mine through the company i work for here, but a friend is coming over to teach English - if she works legally - perhaps at a few schools, will she still be entitled to it?
[quote=“christhomas”]cheers mate!
I know I get mine through the company I work for here, but a friend is coming over to teach English - if she works legally - perhaps at a few schools, will she still be entitled to it?[/quote]
If she’s working legally, whoever is sponsoring her ARC is required to take care of NHI coverage.
Thanks for the advice - I’m sure this would put her mind at rest and save her quite a bit of money!
Cheers
Chris
I have been working for my employer for almost a year now and have yet to receive a health card. They told me I could use the one I had from my former employer until the stamps were full. However, my dentist told me that it expired at the beginning of this year. It was the old yellow paper card. My employer then tells me that my new card has been mailed to my former place of employment. Asking some of my ex coworkers to ask someone about it resulted in nothing. I have been having the insurance fee deducted from my pay for the last 10 months. They are now telling me that I need to pay an additional 200NT to reprocess. By the time they get me my health card, my contract will be finished. I will have payed for a year’s worth of insurance and have been unable to actually use it. I would really appreciate any advice on this matter. Yes, I do realize my naivete during this whole time but now I’m pissed and would like to know towards whom to vent my rage.
Sounds to me like you’re definitely getting screwed. Something fishy is going on. There’s no reason that your new card would be mailed to your old employer, especially after almost a year. Very, very fishy.
Under the old system, the old cards expired the end of every year. You could use the old cards until they were full, but I’m not even sure if places still take them. In any case, your employer should have supplied you with one of the new IC cards upon hire. No excuses for that BS.
I would start by taking a pay receipt into the tax office (you are legal, right?) and explaining the situation to them and asking what’s up. This isn’t their area, but they can check your employer’s ID, verify everything, and hopefully direct you as to where to make things right.
There already is a thread on this. I use Interglobal, a UK firm, around
[quote]The Taiwanese NHS is fine, but if you’re working it may be handier to pay cash to see the doctor unless you like waiting all day. Seeing a quack privately is around NT2-3000 for a consultation. Not much really.
If you get hit by a bus the Taiwan NHS will sort you, but don’t forget to bung the doctor some loot or pull a few strings. Some people forget and end up walking funny. [/quote]
I hope thats supposed to be sarcastic.
I have nothing but praise for the Taiwanese health service. I had a kidney stone a couple of years ago. The doctors were fantastic, the hospital great and the operation was performed within a week of me going for the first appointment. I would have had to wait at least another six months in England or Canada.
I did have to pay about NT$7000 for a few things (your health card doesn’t cover everything), but I certainly never gave out any backhanders.
I did have to go to one private doctor in order to do my medical for Canadian immigration (I’m English, lived in Taiwan and then emigrated to Canada). This guy was a total quack, totally bloody awful and it cost me a fortune.
Believe me, the Taiwanese Health Service is your best option.
[quote=“holmes5668”][quote]The Taiwanese NHS is fine, but if you’re working it may be handier to pay cash to see the doctor unless you like waiting all day. Seeing a quack privately is around NT2-3000 for a consultation. Not much really.
If you get hit by a bus the Taiwan NHS will sort you, but don’t forget to bung the doctor some loot or pull a few strings. Some people forget and end up walking funny. [/quote]
I hope thats supposed to be sarcastic.
[/quote]
Do you really ?
I can’t give any super advice, but this was my experience:
When they switched to the photo card with the magnetic stripe, apparently there was some confusion. My employer sent in all the paperwork, and they sent it back, ostensibly because the picture was bent or creased because of folding to fit it in the envelope. We replaced the picture and my employer sent it back in. We waited for months. I forget how many months, but it was several months. I guess the switch to the new kind of card caused some confusion.
A couple of months after the card arrived, I changed employers. Foolishly, I didn’t look at my pay statements carefully, or I would have seen that my employer was not deducting health insurance payments from my pay. Then, I had a dental problem, and the issue of insurance came up, and my employer told me (which I should have known if I had checked the pay slips) that I wasn’t covered. I had to pay a little arrears but got my insurance back up to snuff.
Recently, I’ve changed employers again, so there may be another problem. I’ll be checking into it soon.
Someone posted about other kinds of health insurance. I’m not saying anything against that, not at all, but in my opinion, a person would be very well advised to get some kind of health insurance here, and the most convenient form for me is national health insurance. And regardless of the comedy of errors of which I wrote above, I’ve gotten good mileage from the insurance. I haven’t had anything major yet (knock wood), but for what little medical care I have had, the health card has been a boon. Also, I’ve gotten a good deal of dental work with it, which was a boon.
I can’t offer much help there. I’ve spent the past couple of years here raging at this and that, and I’m starting to suspect that for me, that’s a health problem in itself. Now, I’ve begun trying to figure out how not to have any rage to vent. 
Hope this helps,
xp+10K
Sounds to me like you’re definitely getting screwed. Something fishy is going on. There’s no reason that your new card would be mailed to your old employer, especially after almost a year. Very, very fishy.
Under the old system, the old cards expired the end of every year. You could use the old cards until they were full, but I’m not even sure if places still take them. In any case, your employer should have supplied you with one of the new IC cards upon hire. No excuses for that BS.
I would start by taking a pay receipt into the tax office (you are legal, right?) and explaining the situation to them and asking what’s up. This isn’t their area, but they can check your employer’s ID, verify everything, and hopefully direct you as to where to make things right.[/quote]
With my old yellow card, when it was full last year I just took it to the front desk at Ren Ai Hospital (on Ren Ai Road) and they issued me a new card after checking my name on a computer printout. I don’t remember what kind of document I had to show, but I do think it was just a paycheck receipt.
Also, everyone has the new card now, so who can say what is the new procedure?
Anyone know what happens if you get hit by a bus or whatever whilst you are waiting for your card to be processed and despatched?