News Hospitals see no merit in employing My Number card

[thomas]

Another blow for Japan's unpopular My Number identification cards: about half of the hospitals that accept My Number cards as health insurance certificates in Japan say they see no benefit for patients, a recent labour ministry survey showed, despite the government's push for people to register for the integrated cards. The number of people who have already adopted the cards as their health insurance certificates has surpassed 70 million, but their actual use remains low among patients, standing at around 4 per cent.

The integrated cards allow medical institutions to view the cardholder's data, including medication prescription records and health checkups, and offer patients appropriate treatment options, the government says. But the My Number ID system has become unpopular among the public following revelations of personal information leaks and registration errors, with some calling for health insurance certificates' phasing out to be postponed, or for the plan to be rolled back. In the survey, conducted between July and September this year, only 29.6 percent of the 892 hospitals that have installed the new system for utilizing the cards said they are using it to view patients' health data, with consent, while 68.2 percent said they are not using the system.

Half of hospitals in Japan see no merit in 'My Number' health insurance cards - The Mainichi

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- About half of the hospitals that accept

mainichi.jp