Papajojo

National Health Insurance for Foreigner in Japan

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by James in Living in Japan

One of the most important thing you need to concern when you live in Japan especially with family is the Health Insurance. If everything is fine you probably don’t see any urgency why you should have it. But you can’t expect to always live in a perfect condition. And considering the expensive cost of medical treatments in Japan you better registered for the National Health Insurance. This is applied for foreigner who granted a period of stay in Japan for one year or more.

Basically there are three kinds of public medical insurance plans in Japan:

• Social Health Insurance – for company employees and their dependents
• National Health Insurance – those who are not covered by other medical insurances and are registered as foreign residents for at least one year
• Long Life Medical Insurance – for age 75 and over or age 65 and over with designated handicaps

So what kind of benefits you will get as the insurance holder?

• As an insurance holder you will get a deduction of hospital charges for medical treatments covered by the insurance. The amount of the deduction is vary based on the age category. For elementary school – 69 years of age, you need to pay 30% only of the charges. While for newborn – before entereing elementary scholl, you only need to pay 20% of the charges.
• If you are hospitalized and your monthly hospital charges exceed a certain amount, you will receive the difference back.
• National Health Insurance holders who have had a child in Japan receive a childbirth allowance of 450,000 Yen (last updated for 2010).
• In the case that national health insurance holder die, some amount of funeral service payment also will be paid.

So you can see how important is that? Normally foreigner will be suggested to register for the National Health Insurance at the time they register for the alien registration. You need to bring your alien registration card, proof of income and some other documents maybe, for registration. Once registered you must begin the premium payments. The amount you pay every year is based on the total of yearly income from the previous year. In my case, since my wife is granted a Mombusho scholarship we need to pay 1,700 Yen each while for my 2 years old daughter we pay only 800 Yen per month.

Well that’s the second point of my article about 10 Important Things To Do to Start Living in Japan. If you have any question about this you probably can contact me or put any comment here so we can discuss. My next post will cover the third point of the series, so stay tuned!

Tags: Alien Registration, Japan National Health Insurance, Living in Japan, Medical Insurance, Medical Insurance in Japan, National Health Insurance