{"entity":{"id":"nhia-taiwan","kind":"institution","name":"National Health Insurance Administration (Taiwan)","aka":["衛生福利部中央健康保險署","健保署","NHIA Taiwan","Bureau of National Health Insurance"],"tldr":"The single payer of Taiwan's compulsory National Health Insurance, in force since 1 March 1995. Patients with a catastrophic illness certificate for cancer pay no co-payment for that cancer, and since 2025 a separate fund pays temporarily for cancer medicines the main budget cannot yet afford.","summary":"The National Health Insurance Act, in force from 1 March 1995, makes health insurance compulsory and social. Patients normally pay 20% of outpatient costs (30% to 50% at hospitals visited without a referral) and 5% to 30% of inpatient costs, depending on the ward and the length of stay, but Article 48 exempts people with a catastrophic illness (重大傷病) from these co-payments. Cancer needing active or long-term treatment is one such illness. Certificates for cancer were permanent when the scheme began; since 2002 they last five years and are renewed if the cancer still needs active or long-term treatment, as the administration explained in December 2013. At the end of 2013, 923,396 people held a catastrophic illness certificate, and cancer accounted for 482,949 of the 986,287 certificates in force (49.0%).\n\nMedicines are listed through a joint committee of the insurer, experts, the insured, employers and providers under Article 41, with patient groups able to give their view, and the insurer may commission a health technology assessment under Article 42; the Center for Drug Evaluation writes those assessments. In 2023 the administration started temporary payment for medicines given accelerated approval and, from January 2024, parallel submission, letting a company apply for reimbursement while the TFDA is still reviewing its licence. From 1 January 2025 NT$5 billion of public budget was put into the insurance fund for a temporary payment fund for new cancer medicines, under rules published on 25 February 2025. Next-generation sequencing for cancer has been reimbursed since May 2024: by February 2026, 62 hospitals had claimed for it and the administration counted 5,700 people who had benefited.\n\nnhi.gov.tw answered OnCo's requests with a Cloudflare challenge on 4 November 2026; this record is written from the law and from the administration's statements published on mohw.gov.tw. The coordinates are a Taipei centroid.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"National Health Insurance Act, Articles 41 to 48 (Ministry of Justice law database, Chinese)","url":"https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=L0060001"},{"label":"NHIA on renewing cancer catastrophic illness certificates, 25 December 2013 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-22701-1.html"},{"label":"NHIA: catastrophic illness statistics for 2013, 8 July 2014 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-21777-1.html"},{"label":"NHIA: cancer medicine temporary payment fund and the NICE workshop, 28 May 2025 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-82614-1.html"},{"label":"NHIA: immunotherapy reimbursement widened, 24 April 2025 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-82268-1.html"},{"label":"NHIA: faster listing of new medicines, 4 December 2023 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-76843-1.html"},{"label":"NHIA: NGS reimbursement results, 14 May 2026 (Chinese)","url":"https://www.mohw.gov.tw/cp-16-86349-1.html"},{"label":"National Health Insurance Administration (Cloudflare challenge to automated requests)","url":"https://www.nhi.gov.tw"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["nsclc","colorectal","breast-cancer","multiple-myeloma"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":["pembrolizumab","atezolizumab","selumetinib","elranatamab","teclistamab"],"companies":[],"institutions":["cde-taiwan","hpa-taiwan","tfda-taiwan"],"pathways":[],"terms":["hta","genomic-profiling"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"city":"Taipei","country":"TW","lat":25.04,"lng":121.53,"institutionType":"government","website":"https://www.nhi.gov.tw","programs":["National Health Insurance (compulsory, since 1 March 1995)","Catastrophic illness certificates (co-payment exemption)","Temporary payment fund for new cancer medicines (from 2025)","Next-generation sequencing reimbursement (from May 2024)","Parallel submission for reimbursement (from 2024)"]},"route":"/institutions/nhia-taiwan/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"breast-cancer","kind":"cancer","name":"Breast cancer (all types)","route":"/cancers/breast-cancer/"},{"id":"colorectal","kind":"cancer","name":"Colorectal cancer","route":"/cancers/colorectal/"},{"id":"multiple-myeloma","kind":"cancer","name":"Multiple myeloma","route":"/cancers/multiple-myeloma/"},{"id":"nsclc","kind":"cancer","name":"Non-small-cell lung cancer","route":"/cancers/nsclc/"}],"drug":[{"id":"atezolizumab","kind":"drug","name":"Atezolizumab","route":"/drugs/atezolizumab/"},{"id":"elranatamab","kind":"drug","name":"Elranatamab","route":"/drugs/elranatamab/"},{"id":"pembrolizumab","kind":"drug","name":"Pembrolizumab","route":"/drugs/pembrolizumab/"},{"id":"selumetinib","kind":"drug","name":"Selumetinib","route":"/drugs/selumetinib/"},{"id":"teclistamab","kind":"drug","name":"Teclistamab","route":"/drugs/teclistamab/"}],"institution":[{"id":"cde-taiwan","kind":"institution","name":"Center for Drug Evaluation, Taiwan","route":"/institutions/cde-taiwan/"},{"id":"hpa-taiwan","kind":"institution","name":"Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare (Taiwan)","route":"/institutions/hpa-taiwan/"},{"id":"tfda-taiwan","kind":"institution","name":"Taiwan Food and Drug Administration","route":"/institutions/tfda-taiwan/"}],"term":[{"id":"genomic-profiling","kind":"term","name":"Genomic profiling","route":"/terms/genomic-profiling/"},{"id":"hta","kind":"term","name":"Health technology assessment (HTA), reimbursement and QALYs","route":"/terms/hta/"}]}}