Encouraging My Number Insurance Cards Use with Scripts and Lump Sum Rewards Raises Concerns

“Incentives Needed to Further Increase Utilization Rate” Doubling the Cap on Lump Sum Payments.

Prior to the December abolition of health insurance cards, the government is making vigorous efforts to increase the utilization rate of My Number insurance cards.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare designated May to July as ‘My Number Insurance Card Utilization Promotion Focus Months’ and launched campaigns aimed at expanding usage. Based on the usage data from October last year, the ministry announced in April that clinics and pharmacies would receive temporary support payments of up to 100,000 yen, and hospitals up to 200,000 yen, depending on the increase in the number of users during the focus months.

However, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is requesting medical institutions and pharmacies to distribute leaflets and display posters encouraging the use of My Number insurance cards as a condition for temporary payments. Furthermore, the ministry has even created and publicly released scripts called “My Number Insurance Card Promotion Talk Scripts” for soliciting this use.

“Even with card readers installed at reception, there are very few patients using My Number insurance cards for medical visits. While posters are displayed and leaflets are available, there isn’t much enthusiasm to actively promote usage just to obtain temporary payments.

During this focused campaign period, pharmacies seem to be leading in increasing the utilization rate of My Number insurance cards. Hospitals with larger administrative staff or pharmacy chains might have the capacity to invest effort into solicitation.”

This comes from Tomoyuki Nakata, director of a dental clinic in Saitama Prefecture.

Since the start of the focused campaign month in May, the utilization rate of My Number insurance cards has increased to 7.73%, up 1.17 points from April’s 6.56%. According to data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, about 70% of this increase is attributed to efforts in pharmacies to promote usage. This has significantly contributed to the overall rise in numbers.

On June 21st, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced an increase in the maximum temporary payments to medical institutions and pharmacies that have increased their number of users beyond a certain threshold. Clinics and pharmacies will see their maximum payments double from 100,000 yen to 200,000 yen, while hospitals will increase from 200,000 yen to 400,000 yen. As of May, a considerable number of medical institutions and pharmacies had already reached the maximum temporary payment limit, prompting the ministry to state that additional incentives are necessary to further increase utilization rates.

However, no matter how it’s explained, the increase in support payments appears to be nothing more than a handout aimed at boosting the struggling utilization rate, which stood at only 7.73% even after the campaign began.

“The temporary payments during the focused campaign month are paid from the Social Insurance Medical Fee Payment Fund.

The fund acts as an intermediary between medical institutions and health insurance associations, responsible for reviewing and disbursing medical fee payments for services provided by medical institutions. Its primary role is to reimburse medical institutions for the medical services they provide. Using insurance premiums entrusted by health insurance associations for temporary payments aimed at promoting My Number insurance card usage seems like a misuse of funds and feels a bit off-track.”

 

When visiting medical institutions that have raised nurses’ wages, the payment amount for initial and subsequent medical consultations increases!?

Starting from June, revisions to medical fees have increased charges for initial and subsequent consultations: the initial consultation fee has risen by 30 yen to 2,910 yen, and the subsequent consultation fee has increased by 20 yen to 750 yen. Basic hospitalization fees have also increased by 50 to 1,040 yen per day depending on the type of ward.

The purpose is to allocate resources for raising wages of healthcare workers, aiming to alleviate manpower shortages and secure talent. In clinics without hospital beds that raise nurses’ salaries, up to an additional 700 yen can be added to the initial consultation fee and up to 100 yen to the subsequent consultation fee. For patients covering 30% of costs, this translates to an increase of 9 to 219 yen for initial consultations and 6 to 36 yen for subsequent consultations at the counter.