For a few months ago I went to Taiwan Adventist Hosptial to get a medical certificate for my ADHD medication which went well after paying around 6000 TWD (Including doctors fee and the medication).
Now my prescription is starting to run out and need a refill since I could stay here longer than I expected with my current on entry visa.
My question:
If I already have a Doctors certificate and completed the evaluation here in Taiwan, what will I need to do in order to refill my prescription here in Taiwan again?
In my home country you usally just go to the pharmacy with the certificate but not sure how it works here. If possible, I would of course not like to pay an additional doctors fee and redo my evaluation and only pay for the medication.
You probably just need to see the doctor you saw again and pay the 200nt fee with NHI.
Refills are possible, if the doctor specifically sent that to a pharmacy like the US. You can’t just go get a refill in the US, it has to prescribed like in Taiwan so the pharmacist can do that.
Thank you for your reply. I do not have a National Health Insurance so I guess I need to pay the full price again and scheduling a meeting with the OPD Doctor again.
I also suspect you’ll need to go back to the doctor, and the easiest thing there (for you) would be to go back to the same one since he/she will already have your info on file and it should be easier to get a repeat prescription.
Depending on the medication, you might be able to get it from a pharmacy, but that’s probably less likely for an ADHD medication given the strict rules here about such drugs. You could try asking in this one, for example, and I suspect they’ll tell you they can’t give it to you without a prescription.
The doctor/hospital registration fee in Taiwanese hospitals is usually relatively low, even without NHI (NT$400-500 total, in my experience), so I think that it’s probably the case that your medicine is simply expensive and that’s the price. I’m not sure what kind of “evaluation” they do for ADHD, but I’d be surprised if that’s a major component of the fee. Anyway, you should be able to check the receipt from your original visit to see how much the fee was for each component - it’s usually separated into “registration fee”, “doctor fee”, “medication”, “pharmacy fee”, etc. (or similar terms). If there’s a separate item for the testing and/or certification, you might be able to avoid that on a repeat visit, but if the bulk of the price is just listed under “medication” that won’t be the case.
You could also try posting a photo (with your personal details redacted, of course) of the receipt if you need help with that - I find it varies whether they list the items in Mandarin or English for foreigners, although I’ve never specifically asked for either. The specific thing I’m wondering about there is whether you went to the International Priority Care Center of Adventist or just the regular hospital, since the former is considerably more expensive I believe. I also get the impression from the text on Adventist’s registration website that foreigners without an ARC have to go to the IPCC (or at least be charged as such). If that’s the case for you, you might well be able to save money by simply going to a different hospital that doesn’t have this policy (which would include every hospital I’ve been to in Taipei before I had NHI, including NTUH, Tri-Service, Mackay, and Taipei Medical University Hospital).
I’m also a bit surprised that the previous doctor was able to give you ADHD medication for “a few months” - I was previously told by one doctor that the maximum amount of medication they could give to non-NHI patients was one month.
The rule in Taiwan is, at the hospital you’ll get a month supply of medication. If you need more than a month the doctor will issue a prescription which can be picked up for free at any NHI pharmacy (it will have the NHI logo on it). They are only allowed to give you one month at a time.
If you need more than 1month of medication on you, then you must show that you’ll be leaving the country, and only in that case will you be issued more than a month supply of medication.
But 3 months is the max as far as I know, and only in that case will you be issued a prescription. Otherwise to refill you must go see the doctor again.
This is one reason why they have to see 200 patients a day.
I’m not sure about the accuracy of this part for non-NHI patients. One doctor I saw previously was originally going to give me a 3-month supply but then had to come back out and tell me she’d found out that the maximum without NHI was one month, so that’s all I could get. (She actually increased the number of tablets needed per day for the purposes of the prescription, so that I could have a longer supply, since it was kind of an as-needed thing anyway, but that’s another story.)
Very interesting. I would love to hear more on that as i had no idea about the 1 month thing. But thinking back, 3 day, 1 week and 1 month have all been common timeframes i have gotten on medications, mostly painkillers and antibiotics, not sure what adhd meds would be but assume the rules are similar across the board. Even opiats they have issued very large supplies wich seems very strange considering taiwans past treatment of painkillers.
Had a knife wound surgery years ago, 4 days in the hospital after the surgery and they only gave me ibuprofen for the pain. i wasnt happy about that, so resorted to the private sector. This year a sever spinal injury, zero nights in hospital, landed me with hundreds of opiate based pills for pain. So strong that i have only taken 3 since march as they are seriously mind bending. Cant imagine taking 3 daily. I hate that kind of drug. But it really seems to me now, it can be doctor to doctor in the way they prescribe. Lots of room for corruption and the like.
But if you already got your meds, probably seeing the same.doc for a quick “hello” would get you an easy prescription if you need it. Many hospitals here are businesses making massive profits off of social expectations. Few doctors fight against this cash grab, so you can go in confident…for better or worse.
My meeting with the doctor went very fast, like 20 min where I told about my background and history and he was just like “okey, I will prescribe the medicine for you and give you a certificate” so there wasn’t really any real evaluation since they just took my word for it.
Here are the receipt I received.
Nursing service: 900
OPD Doctors fee: 4670
Medicine: 510 – The medicine was for 3 months (90 pills)
Supplies: 14
Total: 6094
I am a Non-NHI, and it was in the International Priority Care Center of Adventist.
I think you’ve got your answer then - you went to the wrong hospital. The doctor fee there seems outrageous (for Taiwan), and I’ve never seen a separate nursing fee on a receipt for an outpatient visit (each doctor does have a nurse to assist, but I assume that’s covered by the doctor or hospital fees).
In this case, I’d suggest just going to a regular hospital like any of those I mentioned above (I’ve recently come to prefer Taipei Medical University Hospital and Mackay; Cathay also seemed decent. TMUH probably has the easiest English website for making the appointment and finding the best doctor), with your certificate etc. from last time. You should be able to save NT$5k or thereabouts. I’m not sure you’ll be able to get 3 months at a time though, as discussed above.
The “priority care center” is the deluxe English and Japanese speaking VIP foreigner section of that hospital. Next time I’d suggest trying the “normal” hospital area of the Adventist hospital, they are good enough in English to get by
One thing to know about the IPCC is that you see the same doctors as everyone else. The English-speaking nurses take you around and you don’t have to wait for hours to see the doctor but you pay a big premium for this and the level of care you get as far as the doctors themselves is concerned isn’t any higher.
If you get a doctor who’s solid and you like, it’s good either way. If you don’t…
You’re Taiwanese with NHI, yeah? Are you sure you’re familiar with the policy for foreigners without NHI at this hospital? See the following quote from the Adventist website:
If you were not a citizen of the Republic of China (Taiwan), or a foreigner without the resident certificate , your medical bill will be charged as the standard fee schedule in the International Priority Care Center (IPCC).
I’m not sure - I was thinking of going to the dentistry department there previously (which is why I saw this policy) but ended up going somewhere else (because of the policy). I’m happy to pay out of pocket whatever the fee is, but I didn’t feel a large premium was justified, personally.
I couldn’t find any more information about the exact charges, but it seemed a bit like being shafted. Maybe they throw in a proctologist’s appointment with each visit, who knows.
I used the IPCC numerous times and never paid under $2,000 total for a visit, even when I just went to see the doctor (no tests, etc.). And I never understood why sometimes the nursing fee was billed at $500 but other times it was $900.
Another thing to know is that their minimum applies to everything. If you pay say $10,000 to do a test and come in to have the doctor give you the results, they’ll bill you for that subject to the minimum even if you’re with the doctor for 3 minutes.
In order to prescribe the medication you need to have a meeting.
The psychiatry clinic fee starts at NTD 5,000 (40 minutes) (over 40 minutes we will charge additional NTD 600 for every 10 minutes .
The cost above excludes any medication fees and examination fees.
The actual amount may differ according to each patient’s scenario.
Which is higher than the other alternative. I just dont understand, everyone here is stating that it is very cheap but I recive this insane bills. This time, I even stated that I have the certificate but still I need to pay high fees for a meeting. Could someone please help me understand what I am doing wrong here?
Did you contact their international healthcare center by any chance? If so, that’s like the IPCC at Adventist I believe. “VIP” service, self pay, premium prices.
I’m guessing psychiatry might also be a different thing here. My impression is that Taiwan isn’t really a great place for anything related to mental health.
