NHS and Self-Pay

Just quick reminder.... my wife found out visiting the hospital the other day that if you have at any time in the past selected 'self-pay' instead of National Health Insurance pay during a visit to a hospital, the entire system may revert to 'self-pay' for all your visits, not merely to the same department but to any department of the hospital. Last year she went to one of the GPs for something minor, and since no medication was prescribed, the doctor recommended she 'self-pay' to avoid higher health insurance system fees. Since that time the system has been setting itself to 'self-pay' whenever she comes up -- like last year when she had a spot of surgery that nearly cost us an arm and a leg. Check your bill -- the white part that you return to the cashier -- and ask to make sure that you are not self-pay if you don't want to be (the nurses won't check for you since they assume whatever the system spits out is right). If the NHS is paying, in the box on the upper right corner, where it says "Shen fen (ID)/Ka Hao (card number)" the number '40' will be present. If you are paying yourself, it will say 'ZB.'

Good luck! Hope that 6.7 quake tonight didn't cause much harm down south...

[Taiwan]