Thank goodness for health insurance

This is a photo of the hospital bill that we got for that Sunday trip to the emergency room. The total bill is for NT$ 3511 broken down as follows:

Registration Fee 250
Medical Fee 641
Supplies 3
Medical Procedure Fee 2,617

Total 3,511

The actual amount that I paid was NT$ 553, which is the sum of the NT$ 250 registration fee and a NT$ 300 self pay amount. The entire visit with the doctor lasted only about 5 minutes at the most. All the doctor did was to straighten Erika’s elbow.

This bill reminds me of a bigger bill that we got when Erika was born. As Erika was born premature by about two weeks, she had to stay in the hospital for about 3 weeks. The entire stay included time in the 24 hour intensive care unit and the incubator. The bill that we ran up was in the NT$ 100,000 range but we only paid about NT$ 5000 plus some change. It is times like this that remind me to be thankful for Taiwan’s universal health insurance.