CONTROVERSY OVER NEW NHI POLICY

The Bureau of National Health Insurance is planning to cut reimbursements for various dialysis solutions starting May 1st, leading many patients to worry that their rights will be jeopardized. And a lawmaker even calls the move an ill-conceived attempt to increase the take up rate of peritoneal dialysis. But the BNHI, on the otherhand, has offered its own explanations for the change.

Mr. Fan has been undergoing dialysis for 12 years, and is extremely concerned about the Bureau of National Health Insurance's decision to cut payments for dialysis solutions.

Legislator Twu Shiing-jer says that only 8.6% of Taiwan's 62,000 dialysis patients undergo peritoneal dialysis, and that the BNHI is contradicting its own plan to raise the rate to 15% by 2015.

The BNHI says that patients must travel to hospitals for hemodialysis, while they can undergo peritoneal dialysis at home. Bureau officials say that they are not eliminating solution payments, and that the adjustment is being made because hospitals' solution purchase costs are extremely low.

Therefore, the rights of patients will not be affected. Peritoneal dialysis patients account for 80% of all dialysis patients in Hong Kong.

According to the BNHI, peritoneal dialysis receives payment points of 1.1, compared to 0.85 points for hemodialysis.

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