Research for the evaluation mode of partial payment system including particular material in National Health Insurance

Since the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) in 1995, healthcare cost has no longer an unbearable burden to most Taiwanese people. Results from previous researches have indicated that NHI has truly contributed enormously towards the average life expectancy of Taiwanese population. However, due to the limited budget and payment coverage only a part of medicine and medical devices are fully covered by the NHI. While new technology and medicine become available, healthcare service providers of Taiwan also seek to introduce the latest medical technology and medicine in order to improve the quality of services for their patients. As a result,it is only possible when patients share a part of the costs can NHI still provide more new medicine and technology with its limited premium. In order to offer patients with more medical options without dealing with heavy economic burden, NHI has been applying more and more items into the coverage of partial payment, including prosthesis, pacemaker, drug-eluting stent, ceramic hip, IOL, metal on metal hip etc. At the same time, doubts about appropriate standards, procedures have always been an issue within academia and the society. This hence points out the importance of developing a proper partial payment scheme based on current system. To achieve the goal of establishing a sound partial payment system, this research includes the developmental model from J. Kemm and A. Close. With this developmental model as research theoretical foundation, this research seeks to examine the process, effect and outcome of partial payment systems. In addition, this research project will be implemented in following steps: 1. documentary collecting and comparing; 2. focus-groups interviewing and expert forum, in order to compare the difference of partial payment system in countries and to create an evaluating model for the establishment of partial payment system in our country. To meet above-mentioned research perspectives, this research plans to employ Documentary Analysis and Metal-Analysis, Frequency distribution and Delphi Method etc. to obtain the ideal results. Keywords: partial payment, Documentary Analysis, Meta-Analysis, frequency distribution, Delphi Method