If patients are unable to pay for treatment, the hospital will attempt several measures such as contacting relatives to shoulder the cost, proposing instalment plans or calling embassies for help. When these measures fail, the hospital has no choices but to absorb the cost.
As visitor arrivals continue to see record-breaking highs, a major hospital near Japan’s Narita airport is struggling to cope with an influx of uninsured patients who are unable to foot the bill for their medical treatment.
“Most of the foreign visitors we treat are emergency patients, coming directly from the airport…[who] in many cases are not covered by insurance,” said Tomomi Asaka, a surgeon and chief of the International Medical Center at Japanese Red Cross Narita Hospital, The Japan Times reported.
The bill for emergency treatment “can cost several million yen”.
If patients are unable to pay for treatment, the hospital will attempt several measures such as contacting relatives to shoulder the cost, proposing instalment plans or calling embassies for help. When these measures fail, the hospital has no choices but to absorb the cost.
While Asaka has declined to disclose how many unpaid medical bills it has, she revealed it is “a lot”.
There have also been cases of patients declining medical treatment after learning how much it would cost, Asaka said.
“Many in my understanding do not have the knowledge or custom of buying a policy when travelling. And that is partly the responsibility of their countries as well as Japan, which is campaigning hard to draw foreign visitors,” she said.
According to records, the hospital treated 409 foreign visitors who could not speak Japanese in 2017. To cope with the influx of non-Japanese speaking patients, the hospital set up an International Medical Centre last April with three fully bilingual staffers.
Japan’s legal obligation to provide medical treatment to anyone on request also places a heavy burden on doctors. “We are trained to focus on treating patients without thinking of the bills…so it’s very stressful to provide minimum treatment to patients with financial troubles,” explained Asaka.