Japan Ends Health Card Issuance for Shift to My Number Card

   Tokyo, Dec. 2 (Jiji Press)--Japan terminated the issuance of traditional public health insurance cards Monday for a full shift to the system of using the My Number personal identification card also as a health insurance card.
   The government hopes to replace conventional paper or plastic health insurance cards with the chip-embedded My Number card for social security and taxation, to which health insurance card functions can be added.
   The shift is aimed at advancing the digitalization of medical information. But the benefits have not been communicated sufficiently to patients.
   In addition, the public is concerned after a series of problems over the integration of health insurance card functions into the My Number card, such as one in which information of card holders was wrongly linked with that of other holders in related procedures.
   In October, only 15.67 pct of patients used their My Number cards as health insurance cards at hospitals.

(2024/12/02-08:00)