How Taiwan’s healthcare system works — and what it makes public.

In Polish debates about healthcare, Taiwan keeps coming up as an example of a single-payer system in which you can see a specialist without a referral, know the copayment at the counter in advance, and every visit leaves an electronic trace. We describe how this system works according to Taiwanese legislation and government data, and check what is public in it. The patient receives a receipt showing the amount claimed from the insurer, hospitals’ financial reports are published, and the state knows where every doctor works. What a specific doctor earns, Taiwan does not disclose.

A single payer, contributions based on income

Universal health insurance (National Health Insurance, NHI) has operated in Taiwan since 1995. It is run by a single public institution — the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA). According to the ministry of health, more than 99.9% of the people entitled to it are insured.¹

An employee pays 30% of the contribution, the employer 60% and the state 10%. The same contribution covers dependent family members, but for each of them — up to three people — the employee pays their share again. With a full family, they therefore pay four times as much as a single person.² Since 2013 there has also been a supplementary premium, now 2.11%, levied on bonuses, fees, dividends, interest and rental income.³

In 2023, TWD 836.4 billion was allocated to healthcare services, for a population of 23.4 million.⁴

A global budget and points instead of prices

The system is based on a global budget, introduced sector by sector: from dentistry in 1998 to hospitals in 2002.⁵ Facilities bill services in points from a single national fee schedule. What a point is worth becomes clear only after settlement: the sector’s budget is divided by the sum of points claimed by all facilities.⁶

A point in the fee schedule has no fixed price. What it is worth becomes clear only after the quarter is settled.

point value=sector budget in the region÷points claimed by all facilities

• Nominal valuemedicines and some hospital services — fixed1.00 TWD
• Hospitals, averageannual average 2023–20250.95–0.98 TWD
• Clinics, Taipei regionQ4 20230.813 TWD
• Chinese medicine, Northern regionQ4 20230.694 TWD

0.60.70.80.91.0

The point value is calculated separately for each sector — hospitals, clinics, dentistry and Chinese medicine — and for each of the six regions. If more services were provided in a region than the budget assumed, all facilities in the sector lose, because each of their “floating” points is worth less. In hospitals the average annual point value in 2023–2025 ranged from TWD 0.95 to 0.98,⁷ but in some sectors and regions it is clearly lower: in Q4 2023 a clinic point in the Taipei region was worth TWD 0.813, and a Chinese medicine point in the Northern region TWD 0.694.⁸ In hospitals almost half of the points (47% in Q4 2024) have a fixed value — among them medicines, surgery and some emergency services — so the fluctuations affect the rest.⁹

Since 2025 there has been one more level. In a pilot run in all regions, each hospital gets its own budget, agreed in advance. The basis is the hospital’s revenue from the same quarter a year earlier, converted at a point value set in advance for that quarter. Points above the budget are paid at progressively lower rates — in the Central region at TWD 0.75, 0.5 and 0.25 in turn, and beyond the third threshold not at all; new hospitals received nothing for the excess.¹⁰ A hospital thus knows its limit, and the reduction hits mainly whoever exceeds it.

The global budget keeps payments to facilities in check, but it does not guarantee the balance of the fund itself. The NHI closed the years 2017–2021 with a loss (TWD −67.6 billion in 2020). The years 2022–2024 brought surpluses — after a contribution increase and thanks to subsidies from the state budget. For 2027 the ministry estimates a gap of TWD 55.9–84.3 billion, and the reserve is approaching the statutory minimum, equivalent to one month of benefits.¹¹

Decisions on how the money is divided are made in the open. The budget for the following year is negotiated by the 39-member NHI Committee: the payers — the insured, employers and the government — hold at least half of the seats, the providers ten. The agenda must be published 7 days before a meeting and the minutes within 10 days after it.¹² The government sets the range of growth (for 2027 from 2.619 to 5.5%),¹³ and if the parties fail to agree, the minister of health decides.¹⁴

The fee schedule also discourages seeing very many patients a day, because the fee for a consultation decreases with their number. For each of the first 30 consultations per doctor per day a clinic bills 364 points, for consultations 31 to 40 — 250, 41 to 60 — 220, 61 to 80 — 160, 81 to 150 — 70, and above 150 — 50 points.¹⁵ The rule applies to the consultation itself, not to tests or medicines.

What the patient pays

No referral is needed to see a specialist. The copayment depends on the level of the facility and on whether the patient has a referral — the most is paid by those who go to a large hospital without one.¹⁶

The same visit without a referral: TWD 50 at a clinic, TWD 420 at a medical centre — 8.4 times as much.

Facility level	with referral	without referral	emergency department
Clinic 診所	50 TWD	50 TWD	150 TWD
Local hospital 地區醫院	50 TWD	80 TWDon the receipt below	150 TWD
Regional hospital 區域醫院	100 TWD	240 TWD	400 TWD
Medical centre 醫學中心	170 TWD	420 TWD	750 TWD

On top of the copayment for the visit there is a copayment for medicines. In medical centres and regional hospitals it is about 20% of their value, up to TWD 300. In clinics and local hospitals medicines costing up to TWD 100 carry no copayment, and for more expensive ones the copayment does not exceed TWD 200; medicines for chronic conditions prescribed at a clinic carry no copayment.¹⁶

According to the NHIA, copayments are meant to discourage treating a paid contribution as a subscription to unlimited treatment, but they must not cut people off from treatment they really need. The higher rates in large hospitals are meant to steer minor complaints to clinics.¹⁷ A facility may not waive or reduce the copayment. If it does not collect it as the act requires, the NHIA gives it a penalty point, and after three points a further violation means suspension of its NHI contract for a month.¹⁸

A separate matter is the registration fee, which is not part of the insurance at all. From 2010 the ministry recommended that it be TWD 0–150 for a clinic visit and TWD 0–300 at the emergency department. In 2024 it dropped this recommendation: it considered the fee administrative rather than medical, so the limit had no legal basis. Local health authorities are instead to make sure that price lists are public and that facilities do not set prices jointly, do not exploit a local monopoly in remote areas and do not charge medical fees under another name. In the 26 hospitals run by the ministry the fee was then usually up to TWD 100, and some of them charged none at all.¹⁹ Public health stations (衛生所) charge little or nothing: TWD 50 in New Taipei, while in Nantou County registration is free.²⁰

At a clinic counter, then, one usually pays the copayment and the registration fee. With registration at TWD 150 — the upper limit of the former range — a visit costs TWD 200, of which only TWD 50 is the copayment under the insurance. At a local hospital in Taichung, a visit without a referral with medicines costing just over TWD 300 means TWD 80 of copayment, TWD 60 of medicine copayment and TWD 100 for registration — TWD 240 in total. We break down this receipt in the next section.²¹

For a hospital stay the patient covers part of the costs: on an acute ward 10% for the first 30 days, 20% from day 31 to day 60 and 30% thereafter. In 2025 the cap was TWD 51,000 for a single stay and TWD 86,000 for the whole year.²² Copayments are not paid by, among others, people with serious illnesses and injuries, such as cancer, or by women giving birth.²³

An extra charge for the room itself is allowed only in single and double rooms, and beds without extra charges must make up at least 75% of beds in public hospitals and 60% in the others. In a large hospital, a day in a single room costs, for example, an extra TWD 4,000.²⁴ Such expenses can be covered by a private policy — according to the Commonwealth Fund it pays out money in case of illness, but does not speed up access to specialists.²⁵ How many residents have a health insurance policy is not known; in 2023, 70.88% of the population had a life insurance policy.²⁶

A receipt for every visit

Since 2010 the receipt for every visit must separate items billed to the insurance from those paid privately, and in the insurance part show separately the patient’s copayment and the amount the facility claims from the NHI.²⁷ This is what a receipt from a visit to a neurologist at a local hospital looks like:²⁸

TWD 240 at the counter, about 13% of the cost of the visit. The insurer settles the rest — and the patient sees how much.

醫療費用收據 Receipt for medical services

醫院 facility

○○地區醫院 (local hospital)

姓名 patient

Janusz Kowalski

就醫日期 date of visit

115/09/17 (17 September 2026)

科別 department

神經科 (neurology)

• 藥費 medicines308
• 診察費 consultation286
• 掛號費 registration fee1001Registration feeAn administrative fee outside the insurance — it is not part of the NHI points. The amount is set by the facility.1
• 檢查費 tests1,110

部份負擔明細表 Patient copayment

• 基本部份負擔 visit copayment802Visit copaymentA fixed rate for a visit without a referral at a local hospital — the same as in the table above.2
• 藥費部份負擔 medicine copayment603Medicine copaymentMedicines costing TWD 308 fall within the TWD 301–400 band, for which the patient pays a copayment of TWD 60.3

• 健保申報點數 claimed from the NHI1,7044Claimed from the NHIThe points come from the national fee schedule, not from the hospital’s decision: 286 + 1110 + 308 = 1704.4
• 健保給付 covered by the NHI (points)1,5645Covered by the NHI (points)1704 − 140 = 1564 points. The NHI pays for medicines 1:1; the value of the other points depends on the quarterly settlement.5
• 部份負擔 patient copayment140

• 自付金額合計 paid privately100
• 減免金額 discounts and exemptions0

• 應繳(退)金額 due at the counter240 TWD6Due at the counterTWD 140 of copayment and TWD 100 of registration fee. The rest of the visit is settled by the NHI.6

Click a number next to an amount to see the explanation.

1. 1

   An administrative fee outside the insurance — it is not part of the NHI points. The amount is set by the facility.

2. 2

   A fixed rate for a visit without a referral at a local hospital — the same as in the table above.

3. 3

   Medicines costing TWD 308 fall within the TWD 301–400 band, for which the patient pays a copayment of TWD 60.

4. 4

   The points come from the national fee schedule, not from the hospital’s decision: 286 + 1110 + 308 = 1704.

5. 5

   1704 − 140 = 1564 points. The NHI pays for medicines 1:1; the value of the other points depends on the quarterly settlement.

6. 6

   TWD 140 of copayment and TWD 100 of registration fee. The rest of the visit is settled by the NHI.

Who pays for this visit

• NHI: 1,564 (87%)
• patient copayment: 140 (8%)
• registration fee: 100 (6%)

The same information — since 2022 in five categories for an outpatient visit and seventeen for a hospital stay — is shown by the government “health passbook” app (健康存摺). By the end of August 2026 a total of 12.76 million people had used it.²⁹ The app shows points; how much the facility ultimately received depends on the point value after the quarter is settled.

A Polish patient has similar data in the Internet Patient Account (IKP): visits reimbursed by the National Health Fund (NFZ) since 2008, together with the cost of reimbursement (how to check). The difference is that in Taiwan the patient gets this breakdown at every visit, because the law requires it. In neither country, however, will the patient learn what part of the amount went to the doctor who treated them.

The insurance card and a shared treatment history

The chip-based insurance card has been in use since 1 January 2004.³⁰ At every visit the facility records the visit on it with a sequential number and within 24 hours sends the data to the NHIA — together with the identifier of the health professional who provided the service.³¹ The NHIA matches these records against the claims. A facility that does not record visits receives a demand to correct this; there are separate codes for a reader failure or a patient without a card.³²

1ChipThe facility records every visit on it with a sequential number; within a day the data reach the NHIA. A password set by the patient blocks reading.12Name雅努什·科瓦爾斯基 is “Janusz Kowalski” written in Chinese characters (in pinyin: Yǎnǔshí Kēwǎ’ěrsījī).23Holder’s identification number34Date of birthIn the Republic of China calendar: 89/01/01 is 1 January 2000.45Holder’s photo56Card number6

Click a number on the card to see what it means.

1. 1

   Chip. The facility records every visit on it with a sequential number; within a day the data reach the NHIA. A password set by the patient blocks reading.

2. 2

   Name. 雅努什·科瓦爾斯基 is “Janusz Kowalski” written in Chinese characters (in pinyin: Yǎnǔshí Kēwǎ’ěrsījī).

3. 3

   Holder’s identification number.

4. 4

   Date of birth. In the Republic of China calendar: 89/01/01 is 1 January 2000.

5. 5

   Holder’s photo.

6. 6

   Card number.

The cards also underpin MediCloud, the central database of treatment history. A doctor opens it after authenticating with three cards: the patient’s card, their own health professional card and the facility card, and the patient can block access with a password. Since 2020 an emergency department doctor can look up a patient by ID number in urgent cases (triage categories 1–3); the NHIA logs every such query.³³

The shared history also serves to limit duplicated medicines and tests. When two facilities prescribe the same medicine, the NHIA deducts its cost once a quarter if the duplicates at a given facility reach TWD 1,000 (a supply of up to 10 days does not count).³⁴ Since 2019 the NHIA has not paid for CT or MRI scans ordered at an outpatient clinic if the doctor did not first review the patient’s previous images in the database; a justified repeat scan is allowed.³⁵

Like any system that holds medical data, Taiwan’s is also a target of attacks. In February 2025 ransomware disabled more than 500 computers in the outpatient clinics and the emergency department of Mackay hospital.³⁶ The attacker later offered data said to come from that hospital; according to reports, their origin was not confirmed.³⁷ We found no reports of a breach of the MediCloud database itself.

The state knows where a doctor works

A doctor in Taiwan has one registered place of practice.³⁸ Outside it, they may work in emergencies, for consultations and support of other facilities, when called in, and in other situations — after notification and with the authorities’ consent. Regular scheduled work in a second hospital requires such consent; without it the doctor faces a fine of TWD 20,000–100,000.³⁹ The notified hours count towards the staffing standards of the hospital where the doctor also works: 44 hours a week count as one doctor.⁴⁰

Working in several places is therefore legal, but the state knows about it in advance. In Poland nobody compiles how much one doctor received in total from public funds and how many hours they reported across all their workplaces (more on this mechanism). This is one of the reasons why we call for public total payments to each person, under a permanent identifier and without names.

Hospitals also have minimum staffing standards: at least one doctor per 10 beds and a specialist in every ward.⁴¹ Since 2019 there have been standards for the number of patients per nurse, and every hospital publishes its ratio monthly. Since 2026 the standards for each shift have been written into the act, with fines of up to TWD 2 million; a hospital that meets them receives a 10% higher NHI fee for nursing care.⁴²

Pay: averages for the profession and hospital reports

Doctors’ earnings are described mainly by data from the ministry of labour. In the survey of wages by occupation for 2025, employed doctors (excluding practice owners) had a regular monthly wage of about TWD 180,000, and for the whole of 2024 they earned TWD 2.497 million.⁴³ That is about 3.8 times the average regular wage, which in 2025 was TWD 47,884 a month.⁴⁴

Taiwan does not publish the pay of individual doctors. When in 2025 the ministry of health announced the average pay of nurses reported by 445 hospitals, the director of the responsible department explained that pay is personal data and that the pay of specific people is unlikely to be published.⁴⁵

Hospital finances, on the other hand, are public. Since 2013 a facility that receives more than a set threshold a year from the insurance has had to file a financial report on its NHI activity, audited by a certified public accountant or a government audit body, and the NHIA must publish it.⁴⁶ The threshold was lowered from TWD 600 million to 400 million, and since 2018 it has been TWD 200 million. For 2024 the reports of 240 facilities were published.⁴⁷

In these reports staff costs are a single figure, with no breakdown into doctors, nurses and other staff. In 2017 the NHIA proposed a table with such a breakdown, but the rules did not change.⁴⁸ A Taiwanese foundation for healthcare reform points out that the totals alone do not show whether hospitals hired more people or raised pay.⁴⁹ The median share of staff costs in the costs of medical activity was 46.6% in 2023; the indicator does not include management costs, and in university hospitals part of the salaries comes from the university’s budget.⁵⁰

Hospital doctors are usually employees, but a large part of their pay depends on the number of services. In private hospitals a fixed salary plus a fee for services (the so-called physician fee) is typical; in a nationwide survey in 1998, the variable part made up more than half of pay in 80% of hospitals.⁵¹ The rules for dividing it are set by the hospital, which usually does not disclose them. In one large hospital group whose formula came to light in 2020, a doctor received about 70% of the consultation fee and 60% of the surgery fee. The consultation fee, however, is only part of what the NHI pays for a visit — according to the same report, 5–13% of the total amount paid by the NHI for an outpatient went to the doctor.⁵²

Medical education, number of doctors and working hours

Since 1998 total admissions to medicine have been 1,300 students a year, from 2025 including the military university.⁵³ That is 5.6 places per 100,000 population. In Poland the limit for the 2025/26 academic year is 10,504 places, or about 28 per 100,000 (including 1,888 in programmes taught in a foreign language).⁵⁴ The number of specialist training places in each specialty and each hospital has been approved every year by the ministry of health since 2001; the ministry itself describes this model as controlling limits at the stages of education, examination, training and employment.⁵⁵

Taiwan has 24.2 practising doctors of Western medicine per 10,000 population (2025),⁵⁶ Poland 38.5 doctors working with patients.⁵⁷ Both figures refer to people, not full-time posts.

Doctors of traditional Chinese medicine form a separate group: 8,234 people, or 3.5 per 10,000 population.⁵⁶ Chinese medicine is covered by the insurance — including acupuncture and treatment of injuries⁵⁸ — with a copayment of TWD 50 regardless of the level of the facility,¹⁶ and since 2000 it has had its own global budget.⁵

Doctors work long hours. In 2018 an attending physician in a Taiwanese hospital worked on average 69.1 hours a week, and in surgical specialties 79–85 hours.⁵⁹ Attending physicians are not covered by the labour law; residents have been covered by it since 2019, and ministry guidelines limit their working time to 320 hours per four weeks.⁶⁰ As early as 2015 the ministry of health pointed to staff shortages in five major specialties: internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics and emergency medicine.⁶¹ A report prepared for the World Economic Forum notes that nobody regularly collects data on doctors’ actual working hours and pay.⁶²

We found no official statistics on waiting times for an appointment, a test or a procedure; only the occupancy of emergency departments is published in real time.⁶³ An appointment with a specialist in a hospital can be booked online, or the patient can come without a booking and join the end of that day’s queue. According to Rafał, who lives in Taiwan, the wait for very popular doctors is several days or even weeks, and for other specialists much shorter.⁶⁴ According to press reports from 2026, the wait for a CT scan at large medical centres ranged from 1–1.5 months to as long as a year, partly because of the popularity of free screening.⁶⁵

Professional liability

A practising doctor must belong to a local medical association, but other bodies rule on their professional liability.⁶⁶ Cases are heard by disciplinary committees appointed by city or county authorities, and appeals by a committee at the ministry of health. At least one third of the members must be lawyers and people from outside the profession, and elected politicians may not sit on them. Revoking the licence to practise requires a two-thirds majority. Hearings are closed, but decisions are published in the official gazette, and the ministry runs a search engine for decisions from the last five years.⁶⁷ We found no annual statistics on sanctions. For comparison: how it works in Poland.

Taiwan in international comparisons

Taiwan is not a member of the OECD or the WHO, so it is usually missing from comparisons based on their data. It is ranked first by Numbeo — whose rankings are based on surveys of the website’s visitors — and by CEOWORLD.⁶⁸ According to Taiwanese data compiled by the Commonwealth Fund, the country spent 7.3% of GDP on health in 2023, and life expectancy was 80.2 years.²⁵

What may be of interest to Poland

From the point of view of transparency of public money, the Taiwanese system stands out for three solutions — and for one limit that Taiwan does not cross.

Transparency therefore stops at the level of the hospital and the average for the profession. The Polish proposal — public total payments from public money to each person, under a permanent identifier and without names — concerns precisely the next step: how much public money goes to one doctor.

Method

The starting point was the public posts of Rafał, an X user living in Taiwan who has for several years been describing the system there and considering what of it could be transferred to Poland. We base the description of the system on primary sources: the texts of acts and regulations (law.moj.gov.tw, the binding Chinese version) and the data and announcements of the NHIA, the ministry of health (MOHW), the ministry of education, the ministry of labour and the statistics office (DGBAS). We checked the figures in the full texts of the documents. Secondary sources — the press, the Commonwealth Fund, the WEF report — are marked as such in the notes.

Amounts are given in New Taiwan dollars (TWD) without conversion: the Taiwan dollar is not in the National Bank of Poland table A, from which this site calculates euro amounts. The Polish original converts them into zloty at the NBP rate of 30.09.2026 (table B: 1 TWD = PLN 0.1208), and the 2023 budget at the 2023 average rate (PLN 0.1349). Years of the Republic of China calendar (e.g. 114 = 2025) are converted to years of the Common Era.

Thank you for help and inspiration

Rafal

@rafaltwn

Rafał has for several years been describing Taiwanese healthcare from a patient’s perspective. His posts — including the receipt from a visit to a neurologist — were the starting point for this text.

A Pole in Taiwan, teacher, Polish community activist and supporter of introducing constituencies for Poles abroad (Okręgi Polonijne).

@rafaltwn on X

Notes 68laws, data and statements we relied on

1. MOHW, publication for the 30th anniversary of the NHI, 2025. The percentage refers to people entitled to the insurance, not the whole population. ↩

2. National Health Insurance Act (全民健康保險法) (in Chinese), Article 18 (family members, up to three people) and Article 27 (the 30/60/10 split); the rate of 5.17% from 1.01.2021: NHI Annual Report 2025–2026. ↩

3. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, pp. 18–23; National Health Insurance Act, Articles 31–34. ↩

4. MOHW, press release of 9.01.2023 (in Chinese) (8,364.24 億 TWD). The Polish original converts this amount into zloty — about PLN 112.8 billion — at the average of 52 NBP table B fixings for 2023 (PLN 0.134875). Population at the end of 2023: 23,420,442 (Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior). The healthcare services budget is not the same as the fund’s costs or total health expenditure. ↩

5. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, pp. 44–45. ↩ ↩²

6. National Health Insurance Act, Article 62(3). ↩

7. MOHW/NHIA, tables accompanying the press release of 15.07.2026 (in Chinese), table 2: average annual value of a point for general services in hospitals — 0.9506 (2023), 0.9539 (2024) and 0.9820 (2025). ↩

8. NHIA, table of settled point values for all sectors 2019–2024 — copy on the website of the medical association TMA (in Chinese; an NHIA document, secondary hosting). ↩

9. NHIA, settlement of the hospital point value for Q4 2024 (in Chinese; 70.2 of 148.2 billion points with a fixed value) and rules for settling the hospital budget for 2024 (in Chinese; items with a guaranteed point value). ↩

10. MOHW/NHIA, press release of 15.07.2026 (in Chinese); NHIA, plan of individual hospital budgets in the Central region for 2025 (in Chinese) — table of rates for successive thresholds (0.75 / 0.5 / 0.25 / 0) and the rule for new hospitals. ↩

11. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, table 2-6; NHI Committee (健保會), press release of 1.07.2026 (in Chinese) — forecast for 2027; minimum reserve: National Health Insurance Act, Article 78. ↩

12. National Health Insurance Act, Article 5(3); regulation on the composition and proceedings of the NHI Committee (in Chinese), Article 2. ↩

13. NHI Committee, press release of 1.07.2026 (in Chinese). ↩

14. National Health Insurance Act, Article 61. ↩

15. NHIA, list of fee schedule items (in Chinese), as of 03.2025: codes 00109C (364 points, consultations 1–30), 00223C (250 points, 31–40), 00111C/00112C (220 points, 41–60), 00113C/00114C (160 points, 61–80), 00115C/00116C (70 points, 81–150) and 00117C/00118C (50 points, above 150). The number of consultations is counted as the daily average in a month. ↩

16. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, tables 3-3 and 3-4; MOHW, change in copayments from 1.07.2023 (in Chinese); National Health Insurance Act, Article 43. People with a certified disability pay TWD 50 everywhere. ↩ ↩² ↩³

17. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, pp. 40–41. ↩

18. Regulation on contracts with facilities and their supervision (全民健康保險醫事服務機構特約及管理辦法, in Chinese), Article 36(5) and Article 38(2). ↩

19. MOHW: recommended range from 1.07.2010; abandonment of the range, 7.03.2024; fees in the ministry’s hospitals, 7.03.2024 (all in Chinese). ↩

20. Price lists of health stations: New Taipei (all stations in the city, as of 14.10.2025) and Nantou County (all stations in the county) (both in Chinese). ↩

21. Our calculation based on tables 3-3 and 3-4 of the NHI report (medicine copayment for TWD 301–400 at a local hospital: TWD 60) and the outpatient price list of a local hospital in Taichung (registration TWD 100). ↩

22. NHI Annual Report 2025–2026, table 3-5; National Health Insurance Act, Article 47. ↩

23. National Health Insurance Act, Article 48; Commonwealth Fund, profile of Taiwan, 2026 (secondary source). ↩

24. Regulation on contracts with facilities (in Chinese), Articles 32–34; extra charge for a single room: Chang Gung hospital in Linkou, price list from 1.10.2025 (in Chinese). ↩

25. Commonwealth Fund, International Health Care System Profiles: Taiwan, 05.2026 (secondary source, based on MOHW data): health expenditure and life expectancy for 2023, the role of private policies. ↩ ↩²

26. Life Insurance Association of the Republic of China (LIA-ROC), figures for 2023 (in Chinese); Taiwan Insurance Institute, market indicators, 12.2025 (in Chinese) — active life and annuity policies amount to 262.68% of the population. ↩

27. Enforcement rules of the Medical Care Act (醫療法施行細則, in Chinese), Article 11, as worded from 12.03.2010; history of amendments. ↩

28. Receipt from a visit on 17.09.2026, published by Rafał (@rafaltwn) on X. The amounts match the NHIA copayment table and the hospital’s price list. ↩

29. MOHW (NHIA press releases): launch, 25.11.2014; breakdown of visit costs, 15.12.2022; number of users, 30.09.2026 (all in Chinese) — a total since launch, not active users. ↩

30. MOHW, press release on the chip card (in Chinese). ↩

31. Regulation on treatment under the NHI (in Chinese), Article 8; regulation on the insurance card (in Chinese), Articles 9–10; the staff identifier in the transmitted data: NHIA, questions and answers on data format 2.0 (in Chinese), 10.2024. ↩

32. Regulation on contracts with facilities (in Chinese), Article 35(1); NHIA, exception codes (in Chinese). ↩

33. MOHW (NHIA press release), 13.04.2020 (in Chinese) — authentication with three cards and queries in urgent cases; password on the card: regulation on the insurance card, Article 7. ↩

34. NHIA, programme for controlling duplicated medicines (in Chinese; 2018 version with amendments up to 2025). ↩

35. MOHW (NHIA press release), 25.12.2018 (in Chinese). ↩

36. MOHW, press release of 11.02.2025 (in Chinese). ↩

37. The Reporter (報導者), article on data leaks from hospitals (in Chinese), 2025 (secondary source). ↩

38. Enforcement rules of the Physicians Act (醫師法施行細則, in Chinese), Article 17. ↩

39. Physicians Act (醫師法, in Chinese), Articles 8-2 and 27; regulation on standards for medical facilities (醫療機構設置標準, in Chinese), Article 20. ↩

40. Regulation on standards for medical facilities, annex 1 (in Chinese). ↩

41. Regulation on standards for medical facilities, annex 1 (in Chinese) — standards for general hospitals. ↩

42. Regulation on standards for medical facilities, Article 12-1 (from 1.05.2019, ratio published monthly); Medical Care Act (醫療法, in Chinese), Articles 12 and 102-1, amendment of 15.05.2026; NHIA/MOHW, extra payment for meeting the standard on three shifts (in Chinese). ↩

43. Ministry of Labor (MOL), survey of wages by occupation for 2025 (in Chinese), 29.05.2026, category “醫師”: 56,063 people, regular wage in July 2025 18.0 萬 TWD, annual pay for 2024 249.7 萬 TWD. Employees only — excluding practice owners and the self-employed. ↩

44. DGBAS, earnings in 2025 (in Chinese). Ratio to the average — our calculation (180,000 ÷ 47,884). ↩

45. 知新聞, article on nurses’ pay reported by 445 hospitals (in Chinese), 6.03.2025 (secondary source). ↩

46. National Health Insurance Act, Article 73; regulation on the financial reports of facilities (in Chinese), Article 4 (thresholds of 6, 4 and 2 億 TWD). ↩

47. MOHW/NHIA, press release of 15.07.2026 (in Chinese). ↩

48. NHIA, implementation of the regulation on financial reports (in Chinese), 24.03.2017 — proposed supplementary table with staff costs by profession. The report template — annex 6 to the regulation (in Chinese) — has a single line for them. ↩

49. CNA, article on the growth of hospital staff costs (in Chinese), 15.07.2026 (secondary source; it also gives the share of 45.6% for 2024). ↩

50. NHIA, press release of 29.05.2025 (in Chinese), table 2 and note 1 (share = staff costs ÷ costs of medical activity); 237 facilities; in 2022 the median was 45.6%. ↩

51. 薛亞聖 et al., “台灣醫院醫師薪資制度調查” (“A survey of physician pay systems in Taiwanese hospitals”, in Chinese), Journal of Medical Education 6(2), 2002, pp. 173–184, doi:10.6145/jme.200206_6(2).0007. ↩

52. The Reporter (報導者), article on consultation fees (in Chinese), 27.09.2020 (secondary source; the formula was disclosed by an association of private hospitals). ↩

53. Ministry of Education, press release of 28.06.2025 (in Chinese); MOHW, press release of 30.06.2025 (in Chinese; the limit includes places approved by the ministry of defence). Graduates of foreign universities have a separate pool of internship places. ↩

54. Regulation of the Minister of Health of 7 August 2025 on the admission limit (in Polish), Dz.U. 2025 item 1086 (Journal of Laws), annex 1 (total — our calculation). Poland’s population calculated from Statistics Poland (GUS) data (143.6 thousand doctors at 38.5 per 10,000), Taiwan’s from the MOHW yearbook (23,299,132 at the end of 2025). ↩

55. Regulation on medical specialties and specialist examinations (專科醫師分科及甄審辦法, in Chinese), Articles 9–11; MOHW, press release of 5.01.2015 (in Chinese; specialist training limits since 2001); MOHW, press release on graduates of foreign universities (in Chinese). ↩

56. MOHW, Department of Statistics, yearbook of medical facility services for 2025 (in Chinese), tables 5–6: 56,337 doctors of Western medicine (西醫師) registered to practise. Together with doctors of Chinese medicine and dentists: 35.0 per 10,000. ↩ ↩²

57. GUS, “Zasoby kadrowe w wybranych zawodach medycznych na podstawie źródeł administracyjnych w 2025 r.” (“Human resources in selected medical professions based on administrative sources in 2025”, in Polish), p. 2 — doctors working directly with patients, excluding dentists, as at 31.12.2025. ↩

58. NHIA, Handbook of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance 2020–2021, p. 48. ↩

59. S.-C. Chang, Y.-C. Yu, C.-L. Shih, “The number and composition of work hours for attending physicians in Taiwan”, Scientific Reports 10:14934, 2020 — survey of hospitals from 2018, including on-call duty by phone. ↩

60. MOL, residents covered by the labour law from 1.09.2019 (in Chinese); MOHW, guidelines on residents’ working hours (in Chinese); MOHW, on attending physicians (in Chinese). ↩

61. MOHW, press release of 5.01.2015 (in Chinese). ↩

62. F.-J. J. Tsai et al., “Taiwan: Sustainability and Resilience in the Taiwanese Health System”, WEF/PHSSR, 2024 (secondary source). ↩

63. MOHW, press release of 7.03.2025 (in Chinese) — real-time data on emergency department occupancy. ↩

64. Rafał’s (@rafaltwn) posts on X — a patient’s account, not statistics: on booking a neurologist, on waiting times, on visits to specialists (in Polish). ↩

65. UDN, 25.03.2026 and 15.08.2026 (in Chinese; secondary sources; statements by hospital representatives). ↩

66. Physicians Act, Article 9 (membership of a local medical association, 醫師公會); the national federation is the Taiwan Medical Association. ↩

67. Physicians Act, Articles 25–25-2; regulation on disciplinary proceedings against physicians (醫師懲戒辦法, in Chinese), Articles 2, 12, 13 and 22; MOHW search engine for decisions (in Chinese). ↩

68. Numbeo, Health Care Index methodology (surveys of the website’s visitors); CEOWORLD, Health Care Index 2019. ↩