Page 120 - 2022 Taiwan Health and Welfare Report

the case of emergency). The number of average visits reduced by 20.58% in 2021. Medical costs were also reduced by approximately NTD 467 million.
The Integrated Home Care Plan had 224 participating care providers at the end of 2021 including 3,047 institutions. A total of 75,000 people were provided with care services during the course of 2021.
Post-Acute Care (PAC) program established "PAC Teams" at medical centers (only for heart failure), regional and district hospitals for the treatment of stroke, burn, traumatic nerve injury, fragility fracture, heart failure and frail senior patients. PAC Teams provide such patients with integrated care during the golden treatment period such as intensive and regular physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and language therapy as well as social workers and nutritionists. A total of 38 teams and 217 hospitals are currently in the program. More than 52,000 cases were accepted at the end of 2021. In 80% of the patients, clear progress was made in their function, over 80% of patients returned home smoothly.
As part of the continuing reviews to ensure reasonable payment schedules, with respect to the NHI Committee agreement, in 2020, the budget (NTD 10.3846 billion) increased from the “Change Rate to Cost of Medical Services Index” to the hospital total budget was earmarked for adjusting the payments for emergency and critical care, medicine service fee and emergency and critical care services. 8.226 billion points are used for 108 basic treatments. The adjustments included: outpatient visit fees, inpatient diagnostic fee (the exception of chronic disease beds), inpatient nursing care (the exception of chronic disease beds), medicine service fee (the exception of special prescriptions), ordinary chronic psychiatric bed inpatient care fee, emergency diagnostic fee - third level trauma and emergency diagnostic fee. The aforementioned adjustments took effect on March 1, 2021. In addition, we also adjusted a total of 2.273 billion points for 400 serious illness treatments, 4 subacute respiratory health care beds, and the payment points for 2 chronic respiratory health care beds are remunerated daily, effective on July 1, 2021.
Basic Western treatment applied 5 diagnosis and treatment items such as examination and gynecological surgery to clinics in June, 2021. In addition, the medicine service fee was increased. For outpatient diagnostic fees, the specialists' bonus rate has been increased. The adjustments took effect on March 1, 2021.
Differences over professional review opinions led to members of the public calling for the NHIA to reveal the names of reviewers for the sake of accountability. The NHIA thus launched the "Named Professional Double Review" pilot project in 2016 for the medical expenditure within the hospital global budget. A total of 7 specialties were piloted in some regions. The "Professional Double Review" means two physicians are assigned to review specific cases, while the "Named Review" is divided into the "Named Reviewer for Individual Deduction Cases" and "Named Group" categories.
New complete oral drugs for treating Hepatitis C Virus(HCV) with improved cure rate, reduced side effects, and a shorter course of treatment began to launch as of 2015. For more HCV patients to receive treatments with these new drugs as early as possible, they were added to the NHI coverage as of January 2017, and the NHIA has earmarked a budget up to NTD 30.231 billion for funding these HCV drugs to benefit over 131,000 patients from 2017 to 2021. Viral testing 12 weeks after the completion of the treatment course found that the treatment was successful on 98.4% of the cases, with no detectable viral count.
▏Section 5 Disclosure of Information to Improve Quality
Information on NHI services such as the quality of care at contracted medical service providers, the financial reports, the number of inpatient and outpatient claims and payment point values, nurse-to-patient ratio etc. are all published on the NHIA official website. Such information allows the general public and interested parties to understand the operating efficiency of medical institutions. The exposure of serious violations is also to push for improvements in care quality by medical service providers.
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